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BATTLEFIELDS OF THE 
WORLD WAR 



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AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY 
RESEARCH SERIES NO. 3 

W. L. G. Joerg, Editor 



BATTLEFIELDS OF THE 
WORLD WAR 

Western and Southern Fronts 

A Study in Military Geography 



DOUGLAS WILSON JOHNSON 

Professor of Physiography in Columbia University 
Formerly Major, Division of Military Intelligence, U. S. A. 

WITH A FOREWORD 
BY 

GENERAL TASKER H. BLISS 
Member of the Inter-Allied Supreme War Council 




NEW YORK 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 West 32ND Street 

LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, AND BOMBAY 
I 92 I 



.3* 



COPYRIGHT, I 92 I 

BY 

THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY 

OF NEW YORK 

COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN 



MAI d.\} \oC\ THE CONDE NAST PRESS 

GREENWICH, CONN. 



©CI.A614473 



p 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

List of Illustrations v 

Foreword, by General Tasker H. Bliss .... xiii 

Introduction xv 

I The Battlefield of Flanders: The Wet Clay 

Plain Battlefield i 

II Military Operations on the Battlefield of 

Flanders 53 

III The Battlefield of the Somme : The Dry Chalk 

Plain Battlefield 84 

IV Military Operations on the Battlefield of 

the Somme 134 

V The Battlefield of the Marne: The Plateau- 

AND-LOWLAND BATTLEFIELD 215 

VI Military Operations on the Battlefield of 

the Marne 269 

VII The Battlefield of Verdun: The Cuesta-and- 

Lowland Battlefield 316 

VIII Military Operations on the Battlefield of 

Verdun 377 

IX The Battlefield of Lorraine : The Cuesta-and- 

Mountain Battlefield 415 

X Military Operations on the Battlefield of 

Lorraine : . . . . 473 



BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 



XI The Battlefield of the Trentino : The Alpine- 

AND-PlEDMONT BATTLEFIELD 488 

XII Military Operations on the Battlefield of 

the Trentino 523 

XIII The Battlefield of the Isonzo: The Karst 

Plateau Battlefield 541 

XIV Military Operations on the Battlefield of 

the Isonzo 563 

XV The Battlefield of the Balkans: The Range- 

and-Basin Battlefield 572 

XVI Military Operations on the Battlefield of 

the Balkans 605 

Index 635 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

(m=map; bd =block diagram; d=diagram; p = photograph) 

» 

Battlefield of Flanders 

Fig. Page 

1 Index to the battlefield maps (m) 2 

2 Generalized sketch of Battlefield of Flanders (m) ... 3 

3 Mont Kemmel (p) 4 

4 Mont des Cats (p) 5 

5 Geological column of formations of Flanders battlefield 

(d) 10 

6 Cross-section of Battlefield of Flanders (d) 12 

7 Topographic belts of Flanders battlefield (m) 13 

8 Gohelle portion of southern Flanders plain (p) . . . . 16 

9 Marshes of the Scarpe (p) 19 

10 Canal used as defense line (p) 29 

1 1 Scattered population of Flanders plain (m) 30 

12 Compact villages in Somme region (m) 31 

13 Flanders plain southeast from Mont des Cats (p) . . . 34 

14 Flanders and Somme battlefields (bd) 39 

15 Drainage ditches and canals in maritime belt of Flanders 

battlefield (m) 43 

16 Passer elle across flooded area along the Yser (p) .... 45 

17 Sandbag defenses commanding flooded valley of the Yser 

(p) 45 

18 Morass produced by artillery fire on tree-covered part of 

water-soaked plain of Flanders (p) 46 

19 Defensive position along canal draining Flanders plain (p) 49 

20 Barbed-wire defenses along coastal dunes (p) 50 

21 Extension of defense lines across sandy beach into sea (p) 51 

22 Yser barrier, showing three main lines of resistance (m) 56 

23 Flanders plain south from Mont des Cats (p) 76 

Cf. also PL I (see p. xi) 

Battlefield of the Somme 

24 Generalized sketch of Battlefield of the Somme (m) . . 85 

25 Chalk area of northern France (m) 86 

26 Parallel valleys of the Somme and neighboring rivers (m) 88 



vi BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

Fig. Page 

27 Location of Somme battlefield at natural gateway con- 

necting Flanders with the Paris region (m) 92 

28 Influence of anticlines and synclines on Somme battle- 

field (m) 93 

29 Somme plain looking west across La Boisselle ravine (p) 94 

30 Great Plains near Bismarck, North Dakota (p) . . . . 95 

31 German camouflage of road across Somme battlefield (p) 97 

32 Fault cliff forming northeast face of Vimy Ridge (d) . . 101 

33 View down backslope of Vimy Ridge (p) 102 

34 Looking up backslope of Vimy Ridge (p) 103 

35 Flanders plain northeast from Vimy Ridge (p) .... 104 

36 Mont Kemmel-Vimy Ridge region (bd) 106-107 

37 Typical hill and valley cross-section in Somme battlefield 

(d) '. 108 

38 Geology of portion of Somme battlefield (m) 109 

39 Geological cross-section of typical hill of Somme battle- 

field showing possible locations of trenches, dugouts, 

etc. (d) 118 

40 Marshy valley of Somme River near Amiens (p) ... 122 

41 Typical portion of marshy valley of the Somme (m) . . 123 

42 Quadrilateral of Caesar's Camp (m) 126 

43 Typical dry valley in chalk of Somme battlefield (p) . . 129 

44 Oise Canal at Chauny (p) 131 

45 Three sectors of operations in 191 6 Battle of the Somme 

(m) 146 

46 Field of operations of First Battle of the Somme (m) . 147 

47 Main wire defenses of Hindenburg Line (p) 167 

48 Mont Renaud, commanding Oise valley route to Paris (p) 174 

49 Fortified summit of Mont Renaud (p) 175 

50 Battlefield of Villers-Bretonneux (m) 181 

51 Open valley of Somme River northeast of Villers- 

Bretonneux (p) 182 

52 Some of the major topographic elements utilized in con- 

structing defenses of Arras bastion (m) 190 

53 Somme valley at Brie crossing above Peronne (p) . . . 196 

54 Concrete machine-gun shelter on Hindenburg Line (p) . 201 

55 Main German defensive positions in northern France (m) 

208-209 
Cf. also PL II (see p. xi) 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii 

Battlefield of the Marne 

Fig. Page 

56 Generalized sketch of Battlefield of the Marne (m) . . 216 

57 North-south cross-section of Marne plateau (d) . . . . 217 

58 East-west cross-section of Marne plateau (d) 217 

59 View northeast across the Champagne showing vineyard- 

covered lower slopes of plateau escarpment in fore- 
ground (p) .' 218 

60 Infertile chalk areas of the Champagne with vineyard- 

covered slope near base of Marne plateau escarpment 

in foreground (p) 219 

61 The western theater of war (bd) 220 

62 Marne plateau and Champagne lowland (bd) . . facing 222 

63 Contrast between east-west topographic belts of central 

plateau and north-south concentric belts of Paris Basin 

(m) 226 

64 Chemin des Dames region (bd) facing 234 

65 Typical cliff slope in northern portion of Marne plateau 

(d) 232 

66 Parallelism of topographic elements in Marne plateau (m) 239 

67 Flooded floor of Petit Morin valley (p) 241 

68 Flat-floored valley of Marne River in vicinity of Meaux 

(p) 242 

69 Military value of two types of valley profiles (d) ... 243 

70 Valley of the Marne near Dormans (p) 245 

71 Destroyed bridge over the Marne at Chateau-Thierry (p) 246 

72 Inundated valley of the Vesle near Fismes (p) 247 

73 Escarpment of Marne plateau south of Epernay (p) . . 253 

74 Looking northeast over Basin of Rheims from tree-top 

observatory (p) 256 

75 Moronvilliers massif as seen from tree-top observatory (p) 257 

76 Supposed former courses of the Soude, Somme, Vaure, 

and Maurienne (m) 265 

77 St. Gond marshes (p) : 267 

Cf. also Pis. Ill and IX, A {see p. xi) 

Battlefield of Verdun 

78 East -west section across Battlefield of Verdun (d) . . . 318 

79 Generalized sketch of Battlefield of Verdun (m) .... 319 



viii BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

Fig. Page 

80 Woevre lowland as seen from crest of Meuse plateau scarp 

(p) 322 

81 Woevre lowland looking northeast from crest of Meuse 

plateau scarp at Gironville (p) 323 

82 View northeast from Mont d'Amance across Seille low- 

land (p) 324 

8^ Meuse and Moselle fortified defensive lines (m) .... 329 

84 Northern Argonne and Meuse plateaus (bd) . . . 338-339 

85 Butte of Vauquois (p) 349 

86 Meuse plateau west of Verdun looking northwest from 

near Fort Marre (p) 350 

87 Looking north from spur bearing Fort Marre, showing 

even sky line of dissected Meuse plateau (p) .... 351 

88 Irregularly eroded scarp of Meuse plateau facing Woevre 

lowland (p) 352 

89 East-facing escarpment of Meuse plateau and Woevre 

lowland (p) 354 

90 Crest of Meuse plateau with ruins of Combres (p) . . . 357 

91 Portions of the Barrois, Meuse, Moselle, and Saffais 

plateaus (bd) 358 

92 Abandoned valley of Moselle River in Meuse plateau west 

of Toul (p) •. 360 

93 Mont Sec, an outlying erosion remnant of Meuse plateau 

(p) ' 362 

94 Verdun region (bd) 364 

95 Cross ridges and connecting "bridges" upon which the 

eastern defenses of Verdun were based (m) 366 

96 Meuse plateau east of Verdun (p) 368 

97 Flooded valley of Meuse River in Meuse plateau (p) . 371 

Cf. also Pis. IV and JX, B {see p. xi) 

Battlefield of Lorraine 

98 Generalized sketch of Battlefield of Lorraine (m) ... 417 

99 Northwest-southeast section across Battlefield of Lorraine 

(d) 418-419 

100 Forest of Champenoux in lowland at base of Mont 

d'Amance plateau (p) 420 

101 Saffais plateau escarpment and lowland east of it (p) . 422 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix 

Fig. Page 

102 Looking southeast over lowland from crest of Saffais 

plateau (p) . 423 

103 Valley of the upper Moselle north of the Remiremont (p) 426 

104 Upper valley of Moselle River as seen from base of Ballon 

d' Alsace (p) 427 

105 Vosges Mountains looking north from Ballon d'Alsace (p) 428 

106 Nancy region (bd) 432-433 

107 Valley of the Natagne traversing Mont d'Amance 

plateau bastion (p) 434 

108 Ste. Genevieve plateau forming northern face of Mont 

d'Amance natural bastion (p) 435 

109 Butte of Mousson (p) 436 

no Eastern portion of Mont d'Amance natural bastion (p) 438 
in Diagram to illustrate protective value of forest cover on 

steep upper slope of Moselle plateau scarp (d) ... 441 

112 Marginal tree fringe of Meuse plateau scarp, also charac- 

teristic of Moselle and Saffais plateaus (p) 442 

113 Cote deDelme seen from crest of Moselle plateau scarp (p) 444 

114 Looking southward from "Amance bastion" of the Grand 

Couronne across "Nancy curtain" to "Luneville bastion" 

(p) 446 

115 Lowland east of Saffais plateau (p) 450 

1 16 Looking eastward from crest of Vosges down valley cut in 

steep eastern face of range (p) 458 

117 Valley of the Meurthe showing edge of scarp of "sandstone 

Vosges" (p) 462 

118 Natural bastions and curtains of Nancy region (m) . . 483 

Cf. also Pis. V and VI {see p. xi) 

Battlefield of the Trentino 

119 Italian theater of war (m) 490 

120 Generalized sketch of Battlefield of the Trentino (m) . 493 

121 New Italian military road ascending Monte Grappa 

massif (p) 494 

122 Trench of the Adige with high ridge of Con! Zugna in 

distance (p) 495 

123 New Italian military road zigzagging up slope of Monte 

Baldo (p) 496 



x BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

Fig. Page 

124 Teleferica on slope of Adamello group (p) 497 

125 Comparison of Italy and California (m) ....... 498 

126 Crossing glaciers of high Adamello group by dog sleds (p) 499 

127 Special costumes worn by "Alpini" in mountain warfare 

on snow-covered terrain (p) 500 

128 Monte Pasubio massif as seen from airplane (p) . . . . 501 

129 Coastal marshes bordering Adriatic at foot of Piedmont 

plain (p) 503 

130 Multiple channels and sand bars of Piave River (p) . . 505 

131 Italian machine-gun positions along dike bordering Piave 

River (p) 505 

132 Piave River crossing Piedmont plain as seen from Monte 

Grappa (p) 508 

133 Italian first-line trenches behind defensive barrier of the 

Piave (p) 511 

134 Inn corridor in vicinity of Innsbruck (p) 512 

135 Flat-floored trench of the Vintschgau (p) 513 

136 Wild mountain gorge forming Finstermunz Pass (p) . . 515 

137 Konigspitze, part of the glacier-clad Ortler group (p) . . 517 

138 Upper bench of Asiago plateau (p) 518 

139 Gun position at exit of tunnel excavated in solid rock of an 

Alpine mountain (p) 521 

Cf. also Pis. VII, X, B, and XI, B (see p. xi) 

Battlefield of the Isonzo 

140 Generalized sketch of Battlefield of the Isonzo (m) . . 543 

141 Barren upland of the Carso (p) 545 

142 Isonzo front showing the Carso and Bainsizza plateaus 

(m) 547 

143 Ridges of the Alps in northern part of Isonzo battlefield, 

and Isonzo River at Caporetto (p) ........ 548 

144 Matajur-Cucco ridge viewed from the plain (p) . . . . 550 

145 Italian front across karst plateau (p) 552 

146 Sink hole in limestone of karst country (p) 553 

147 Defensive position on western margin of the Carso (p) . 555 

148 Hermada hills on southern border of Carso (p) .... 556 

149 Isonzo River flowing through Plezzo basin (p) .... 558 

150 Isonzo River at base of Carso plateau (p) 561 

Cf. also Pis. VIII and X, A (see p. xi) 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi 

Battlefield of the Balkans 

Fig. Page 

151 Barriers of the Balkan Peninsula (m) 574 

152 Generalized sketch of Battlefield of the Balkans (m) . . 577 

153 Rugged limestone mountains of southern Albania (p) , 578 

154 Flat floor of Struma basin (p) 580 

155 Argyrocastro basin (p) 582 

156 Wagon train passing through flooded Morava valley (p) 586 

157 Austrian forces assembled along Save River barrier (p) . 587 

158 Flat desert floor of Monastir basin (p) 594 

159 Natural defenses of the armed camp of Saloniki (m) . . 598 

160 Northwestern Serbia (m) 607 

161 Italian military road ascending to pass giving access to 

Chimara basin (p) 621 

162 Exposed floor of broad valley of Voyussa River (p) . . 622 

163 Voyussa River north of Valona (p) 625 

164 Mountainous terrain in great bend of the Cherna (p) . . 626 

165 Moglenitsa basin and mountainous triangle between the 

Cherna and Vardar Rivers (m) 629 

Cf. also PL XI, A (see below) 
PLATES IN SEPARATE POCKET 

I Topographic map of the Battlefield of Flanders, 1 :300,ooo 

II Topographic map of the Battlefield of the Somme, 1:300,000 

III Topographic map of the Battlefield of the Marne, 1:300,000 

IV Topographic map of the Battlefield of Verdun, 1 :300,ooo S 
V Topographic map of the Battlefield of Lorraine, 1 :300,ooo 

VI Block diagram of the Battlefield of Lorraine 
VII Block diagram of the Battlefield of the Trentino * 
VIII Block diagram of the Battlefield of the Isonzo 
TY J A Panorama of the Meuse plateau and Woevre lowland ' 
\ B Panorama of the Douaumont sector of the Verdun • 
Battlefield 
A Panorama of the Isonzo-Carso region ^ 
B Panorama of the Asiago plateau 
\ A Panorama of the Belashitsa Range and Struma basin 
B Panorama of the Adige trench and bordering mountains 



X 



• 



Figs. 13 and 23 are reproduced with the permission of the Director 
of Military Intelligence of the War Office, London; Figs. 10, 16, 17, 18, 
iq, 20, 21, of the Direction des Informations Militaires, Ministere de 



xii BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

la Defense Nationale, Brussels; Figs. 31, 44, 48, 49, 70, 71, 72, 85, 90, 
°3> 97j I0 9> IT 3 an d Pl s - IX,A and IX,B, of the Chef de la Section 
Photographique de I'Armee, Paris; Figs. 127, 128, 120, 130, 131, 132, 
133, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 154, 155, 
138, 164 and Pis. X,A, X,B, XI, A, XI, B, of the Direzione del Servizio 
Fotografico, Comando Supremo, Regio Esercito Italiano, Rome. 

Pis. I to V inclusive are reproduced from the five-color Carte de France, 
1:200.000, published by the Service Geographique de I'Armee, Paris. 
Each plate is made up of the parts of the sheets of this map necessary 
to cover a given battlefield. The sheets used are: 2 {Dunkerque-Bruges) , 
4 {Lille), Q {Amiens), 10 {Mezieres), 11 {Longwy), 16 {Paris), 17 
{Chalons), 18 {Metz), 19 {Karlsruhe), 25 {Melun), 26 {Troyes), 27 
{Nancy), 28 {Strasbourg), 35 {Vesoul), 36 {Zurich). 



FOREWORD 

Every informed General Staff officer understands, of course, 
the broad relations between topography and the strategic plans 
for a campaign or the tactical dispositions for a battle. These 
were known and applied as well by Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar 
as by any modern commander. Many of these relations are so 
simple and self-evident that, in the rudest ages of war, they have 
been instinctively noted and taken advantage of; and, where 
not, the resulting disaster may generally be traced to self-confi- 
dence or indifference to the plain teachings of Nature. Many a 
commander has unconsciously taken into his calculations cer- 
tain basic conditions of geology, just as Moliere's grocer spoke 
prose without knowing it. 

But, in war, as between two equally skillful generals, at some 
all-important time in the game one of them has to play to the 
other's lead. It may be that then only one of them is favored by 
all the physical and seasonal conditions of the terrain. The other, 
most likely, can not defer his action to a more convenient and 
favorable time or place. His adversary's card is on the table; he 
must play his own then and there or forfeit the game. All Nature 
seems to be in alliance with his opponent. It is just then that his 
success — which may consist in preventing defeat quite as much 
as in gaining a patent victory — may depend upon a deeper 
knowledge of Nature and her processes. If the sun, the very 
stars in their courses, the tides of the sea, the running streams — 
everything on the surface of the earth and above it has marshaled 
its influence in favor of his enemy, then, though he may have to 
surrender topography to that enemy, he himself may have to 
burrow beneath it all and exert his strength amid the unseen, 
tumbled, and contorted ruins of old Chaos. Not only there, but 
on the surface too, he must know how to exert his propaganda on 
that Nature which seems to have entered into an unholy alliance 



xiv BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

against him, to play one of her laws or processes against another, 
to slay her ally with venom-tipped arrows skillfully stolen from 
her own quiver. 

It is difficult to say whether this work of Professor Johnson has 
been written more for the benefit of the geographer and geologist, 
or of the military student, especially the student of the operations 
in the Great War, or of those who like to read charming descrip- 
tions in sweetly flowing English, of the physical landscapes in 
both their gay and gloomy moods — the plains of Flanders, the 
chalk uplands of Picardy and Artois, the pastures and vineyards 
of Champagne, the glens and forests cf the Vosges, or the moun- 
tain valleys and tarns and peaks and precipices of the Alps and 
the Balkan ranges — which are so clearly portrayed that neither 
the scientist nor the military student nor the lover of Nature in 
literature need visit them in order to see and understand them. 
To all of them it will be a classic, and to none more than to 
another. But it is to the military student that I especially com- 
mend it in order that he may see, among other things, how the 
art of war has gathered to itself and absorbed not only all trades 
and arts, all the elder sciences, but has now laid hands on this 
youngest one of all, this youthful David of human knowledge, to 
help us to do the one thing that can ennoble our own art and 
science — to slay the evil giants of wrong and oppression. 

Tasker H. Bliss 



INTRODUCTION 

The Problem Stated 

"Do the mountains defend the army, or does the army defend 
the mountains?" The problem is an old one, and has claimed the 
attention of military authorities in all countries and in all times. 
Expressed in broader terms, it is the oft-debated question as to 
the relative influence of topography upon strategy and tactics 
under changing conditions of warfare. It is an ever-recurring 
question, for each "revolution" in methods of combat brings in its 
train a body of opinion intent on demonstrating that, under the 
new conditions of fighting, topographic obstacles have lost their 
significance, strategic gateways no longer exist, and commanding 
positions no longer "command." Then, as opposing forces share 
in the new discoveries, or profit in equal measure by new systems, 
the fundamental importance of topography reasserts itself, and 
each side maneuvers for an advantageous position on the terrain 
as one of the prerequisites to victory in battle. 

The question is still a live one. The warfare of today employs a 
variety of inventions and technical devices, each of which may 
appear to reduce, if not to destroy, the influence of topography 
upon military operations. What protection is a river channel, 
when the modern military engineer can throw bridges across 
it in a few hours, defended by artillery which can reach the enemy 
many miles beyond the farther bank? What need has the artil- 
lery for hill positions, when guns are now commonly concealed in 
valleys and ravines, firing with marvelous accuracy upon objec- 
tives the gunners never see? With sound-ranging and flash- 
ranging devices to spot enemy batteries, with airplanes and aerial 
photography to locate these and other objectives and to exercise 
surveillance over enemy movements, of what significance is a 
paltry elevation of some few tens or hundreds of feet, dignified in 
earlier wars as "dominating heights?" So might one multiply, 
indefinitely, queries the common answer to which would seem to 



xvi BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

be that in the warfare of the present time the inventions of Man 
have reduced to insignificance the role of Nature. 

Strategic Frontiers 

If this be true, the matter is one of far-reaching importance, 
not only to the military leader but also to the statesman. The 
problem of strategic frontiers and the question of the influence of 
topography on warfare are inevitably linked the one with the 
other. If the character of the terrain is of no consequence in 
modern fighting, much of the argument for strategic frontiers 
falls to the ground. On the other hand, if a frontier may be 
strong or weak, impregnable or vulnerable, according to the 
nature of the terrain which it traverses, then the statesman must 
weigh this aspect of the territorial problems which come before 
him for adjustment. Whether he believes that strategic claims 
are but cloaks covering a multitude of imperialistic sins, or holds 
the view that strong frontiers may be locks discouraging inter- 
national burglary and hence aids to maintaining world peace, he 
must take cognizance of strategic frontiers if they really exist. 
Others will demand them, and the wise statesman will bring to 
the consideration of such demands a full knowledge of the 
strength and weakness of the supporting arguments. 

The Value of Terrain 

One object of the present volume is to demonstrate the fallacy 
of the contention that modern methods of warfare have reduced 
to insignificance the r61e of the terrain as a factor in strategy and 
tactics. This demonstration might be made by abstract argu- 
ment: by showing that, despite the enormous improvement in 
the artillery and other arms of the service, it is still the infantry 
which must drive back the enemy and conquer the ground on 
which he stands, and that whatever affects the movement of 
infantry remains a vital element in the fighting; by pointing out 
that one of the most effective agents in breaking through wire- 
defended trench systems, the tank, finds in rivers and marshes 
more serious obstacles than such topographic barriers ever consti- 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

tuted for lighter and more mobile weapons; by proving that 
direct and uninterrupted observation of enemy back areas from 
concealed positions on topographic eminences held constantly in 
easy communication with the artillery is, for the speedy and 
accurate control of gun fire, greatly superior to observation from 
airplanes, because such observation is often interrupted by 
weather conditions, is limited in some measure as to its efficiency 
by difficulties of communication, and is reduced in value by the 
necessity of flying high to avoid enemy bombardments or by the 
exigencies of aerial combats with enemy planes. 

Or the demonstration might rest more heavily upon the expert 
testimony of those responsible for the gigantic military operations 
of the World War: upon the opinion of De Castelnau, proved by 
events to be correct, that the peculiar terrain of the Nancy region 
would enable limited forces to defeat a numerically superior 
enemy in a modern battle; 1 upon Haig's dictum that the whole 
war might be considered a series of struggles for topographic 
position; 2 upon Ludendorff's statement that by 1916, after the 
Battles of Verdun and the Somme, "the decisive value of the 
artillery observation and the consequent necessity of paying 
great attention to the selection of positions had also become 
apparent ;" upon his testimony, a year later, that "another tactical 
detail which was emphasized everywhere was the value of ground 
observation for artillery. Only by that means could the attacking 
hostile infantry be annihilated, particularly after penetrating our 
front, or fire be concentrated on decisive points of the battle- 
field;" and, finally, upon his assertion in 191 8, despite the fact 
that loss of strong defensive positions had by that time weakened 
his faith in the value of commanding ground in defense, that "in 
the attack in the war of movement the capture of some high 
ground brought about the tactical decision. Its possession must 
therefore be striven for as a matter of principle." 3 

1 See Chapter X. 

2 Personal communication. 

3 Erich von Ludendorff: Ludendorff's Own Story, August 1914-November, 191 8: 
The Great War from the Siege of Liege to the Signing of the Armistice As Viewed 
from the Grand Headquarters of the German Army, 2 vols., New York, 1919; 
references in Vol. 1, p. 324; Vol. 2, pp. 103, 200. 



xviii BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

The writer has preferred, however, to let the demonstration 
rest upon a simple presentation of the record. No one who knows 
the terrain of the principal battlefields of the World War, and 
who follows carefully the operations of the contending armies, can 
doubt that under modern conditions of warfare the terrain is, 
more than ever before in military history, an important factor in 
strategy and tactics. This is not to imply that armies should put 
their whole trust in topographic barriers or commit the error of 
seeking victory by standing permanently on the defensive upon 
some strong natural position. The folly of such tactics was 
repeatedly demonstrated by the Germanic generals of Napoleon's 
time, and this extreme view of the value of "commanding ground" 
has been justly condemned by Clausewitz and other writers on 
the art of war. Nature offers no absolutely impregnable positions. 
In the words of Foch, "All terrains may be crossed by the enemy 
unless defended by rifle shots, that is to say, by active and valiant 
men." 4 It is rather to support the view of Napoleon that strong 
natural positions are one of the factors which enable an army to 
maneuver advantageously in the face of a superior or equal 
enemy; the view of Clausewitz that even the larger army must 
not despise a source of strength which enables it to hold the 
enemy at bay with limited forces along one part of its front while 
it concentrates its major effort elsewhere; and the view of the 
modern general who finds in the better observation and artillery 
control offered by a favorable terrain elements which often prove 
decisive in both defensive and offensive battles. 

To the fullest appreciation of the important influence of 
topography on modern warfare two things are fundamentally 
essential, two things which unfortunately have not been easily 
obtainable. The first is a reasonably accurate mental image of 
each battlefield, a picture of those salient features of the terrain 
which might be expected to influence the dispositions and move- 
ments of armies. The second is a record of the military operations 
on each battlefield presented, not in the usual terms of advances 
or retreats to this or that line of villages and towns, but in terms 

4 Ferdinand Foch: Des principes de la guerre, Paris, 1917. p. 29. 



INTRODUCTION xix 

of the plateau scarps, ridge crests, valley trenches, marsh barriers, 
and other topographic features which obviously affected the 
fighting and its results. 

Scope of the Present Work 

In the present volume the writer has endeavored to supply 
these two prerequisites to an understanding of the influence 
of topography upon the World War. For each important battle- 
field on the western and southern fronts there is presented, with 
the aid of maps, perspective diagrams, and photographs taken 
for the special purpose of showing essential elements of the 
terrain, such a picture of the stage upon which the drama of war 
was enacted as is hoped will prove both entertaining and helpful 
not only to the specialist, but equally to the reader who is neither 
military expert nor geographer. Throughout the descriptions an 
effort has been made to unite scientific accuracy of treatment 
with a phraseology as far as possible devoid of technicalities. If 
these descriptive chapters prove of service to the future historian 
of the war who would understand fully the events he chronicles, if 
they aid the military student in analyzing the operations of each 
battle and campaign, if they "provide the geographer with new 
illustrations of the influence of topography on one phase of human 
activities, if they furnish the intelligent traveler with a new form 
of guide to European battlefields, and if they give to other readers 
a few hours of pleasure and of profit, the author's labors will be 
most abundantly rewarded. 

For each battlefield described there is a companion chapter 
recording in proper sequence the major military operations which 
were carried out upon it. Here for the first time, so far as the 
author is aware, the reader will find the operations of each 
battlefield presented as a unit and in terms of the terrain by which 
the plans of campaign and the movements of armies were most 
profoundly affected. In these chapters the author has not 
attempted to write history but to offer a partial interpretation of 
the significance of certain events in history. Time has not 
permitted that investigation of original sources essential to an 



xx BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

accurate and well-balanced chronicle of the events of the war, and 
the reader will doubtless discover errors both of omission and 
commission which would mar the value of the record, did it make 
any pretense at giving an adequate history of even the major 
events of the great conflict. It is believed, however, that no such 
errors will be found to diminish the usefulness of these chapters 
as a general resume of the principal battles and campaigns on 
each sector of the western and southern fronts, as affected by the 
terrain upon which they occurred. 

No treatment of the Rumanian and Russian fronts is included 
in the present text. The operations on those fronts, in so far as 
they materially influenced the main struggle, came to an end 
about the time the author published his "Topography and 
Strategy in the War." The reader who would complete his survey 
of the European battlefields with some account of the eastern 
terrains and the principal operations upon them, may consult 
that volume. Acknowledgments are due Messrs. Henry Holt 
and Company, the publishers of "Topography and Strategy in 
the War," for permission to incorporate in the present work the 
descriptive matter relating to the northern and central Balkans, 
as well as certain paragraphs concerning the Italian front and 
several text figures which appeared in the earlier work. 

Basis of the Present Work 

From the beginning of the war the author followed closely the 
military operations on large-scale topographic maps, aided by 
such special knowledge of the terrain as his previous travels and 
geographic investigations had given him. The results of these 
studies appeared from time to time in the publications of the 
American Geographical Society, and later in the book mentioned 
above. The cordial reception given these very general essays 
encouraged the belief, particularly after America entered the 
struggle, that a more critical and detailed study of the principal 
battlefields of the World War would give results of value, an 
idea warmly supported by the American Geographical Society. 

An exceptional opportunity was presented when the author, 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

having previously been ordered by the Secretary of War to report 
to the Secretary of State for special service abroad, was directed 
by the latter to proceed to Europe "for the purpose of making 
special studies in military geography for the use of this Depart- 
ment [of State] in connection with the work being done at the 
direction of the President by Colonel E. M. House." Prepara- 
tions were already being made for the Peace Conference which 
must follow the conclusion of hostilities, and it was considered 
essential that the American representatives should bring to the 
discussion of the strategic claims of different countries as full a 
knowledge as possible of the strategic and tactical value of land- 
forms under modern conditions of warfare. A part of this 
knowledge could best be gained by studies on the ground while 
operations were still in progress, and while the men directing 
them had all phases of their problems freshly in mind. The 
American Geographical Society was then housing the staff of the 
"Inquiry" assembled under Colonel House's direction, and co- 
operating in its investigations; and it made from its own funds a 
generous appropriation to assure the author every facility in 
prosecuting his European studies. 

It was under these favorable conditions that the author, accom- 
panied by one of his former students, Lieutenant S. H. Knight, 
professor of geology in the University of Wyoming, visited the 
Belgian, British, French, American, Italian, and Balkan fronts. 
The War Offices at London, Paris, and Rome generously placed 
at our command large-scale maps and relief models of the 
battlefields, reports on operations, and other material of value in 
the prosecution of the work; and also facilitated in every way 
our studies along the various fronts. As a rule the generals com- 
manding on these fronts not only welcomed us at their messes, 
where opportunity was afforded to discuss problems of military 
geography with the most competent leaders in each given sector, 
but manifested a personal interest in the investigation, often 
tracing in detail upon maps or models the course of operations, 
and contributing from their wide experience suggestions of the 
highest value. A member of the staff familiar with the terrain, 



xxii BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

its defensive organization and the operations upon it, was usually 
assigned to accompany us and to assist in our studies. 

Upon the conclusion of hostilities the author was called upon 
to undertake geographical investigations in preparation for the 
Peace Conference which were only indirectly related to the study 
of European battlefields. But at the Conference he had an oppor- 
tunity, first as Chief of the Division of Boundary Geography on 
the American delegation and as technical adviser meeting with 
various commissions, and later as a member of several of the 
international Territorial Commissions, to participate in extended 
discussions of the strategic and tactical value of the terrain along 
certain proposed frontiers. 

If the author has thus enjoyed some unusual advantages in the 
prosecution of the studies upon which the present volume is 
based, it is but fair to add that other circumstances limited the 
extent to which these advantages could be utilized. The enemy 
was still in possession of large areas which are of necessity in- 
cluded in any adequate survey of the principal battlefields, and 
it has been possible to visit but a limited portion of his former 
holdings since the armistice. The time available for the battle- 
field studies was seriously curtailed by the necessity of carrying 
on other investigations for the "Inquiry," the results of which were 
needed in preparation for the Peace Conference. Before a begin- 
ning on this volume could be made, the assignment to service at 
the Peace Conference postponed the work for many months, a 
postponement which was prolonged by further service as an 
adviser on geographical questions to the Department of State 
after the author's return from Paris. Not until February, 1920, 
could the considerable task of preparing this volume be taken up, 
and then only in connection with regular university duties and 
under special conditions which made absolutely necessary the 
completion of the manuscript by early autumn. Thus have 
circumstances beyond the author's control limited unduly the 
time at his disposal, while lack of access to a large library during 
half the working period proved a further handicap. If the reader 
feels that inadequate consideration is given to certain works on 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

the great war which have recently appeared, and discovers other 
deficiencies, of which the author is only too conscious, it is hoped 
he will agree that the omissions do not materially affect the main 
purpose of the volume, and that he will show such indulgence as 
the circumstances cited may seem to deserve. 

Acknowledgments 

It is evident that the conditions under which the author visited 
the battle fronts and prosecuted his studies must place him in 
an embarrassing position in acknowledging his indebtedness 
to the many who have assisted in this work. The number of those 
who rendered valuable aid is so large that merely to name them 
would be impracticable. It must suffice to express here my pro- 
found gratitude to all of them, and to record my sense of obliga- 
tion to each and every one who in government bureaus or on the 
battlefields placed his materials, his expert knowledge, and his 
invaluable assistance at my service. A special measure of appre- 
ciation is due to Marshal Joffre, General de Castelnau, General 
Gouraud, and General Bourgeois of the French Army; Field 
Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, General Rawlinson, and General 
Biddulph of the British Army ; General Diaz, General Badoglio, 
and General Ferrero of the Italian Army; and General Henrys 
and General Milne of the French and British forces in the Army 
of the Orient, for critical analyses of certain military operations 
on different terrains, for valuable suggestions and criticisms of 
the problem under investigation, for providing unusual facilities 
for prosecuting the work, or for personal discussions and explana- 
tions in the field. To all of these the author desires to acknowl- 
edge his sense of obligation, without in the slightest degree mak- 
ing them responsible for any statements of fact or any inter- 
pretations which appear in the following pages. To Colonel 
Delfino De Ambrosis, military geographer on the Italian General 
Staff, for invaluable assistance and advice at the War Office at 
Rome, at the Military Geographical Institute at Florence, and 
along the Italian front; to the Italian geographer, Colonel Filippo 
De Filippi, and his gallant brother, Captain De Filippi of the 



xxiv BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

Royal Italian Navy, who gave his life to save others when his 
destroyer was sunk in the Adriatic, for manifold services at 
London, Paris, Rome, and in Albania; to Lieutenant Colonel 
T. Edgeworth David, Chief Geologist of the British Expedi- 
tionary Force, for important data on the geological conditions 
encountered on the Somme front and in Flanders; to Captain 
Alan G. Ogilvie, geographer with the British forces in the Balkans, 
for valuable criticisms of the text describing the Balkan front; 
and to my assistant and companion in the field, Lieutenant S. H.. 
Knight, for efficient aid at all times, my cordial thanks are gladly 
given. It is a special pleasure to express my gratitude to my 
former chiefs, General Marlborough Churchill and Colonel R. H. 
Van Deman, for their unfailing and generous assistance through- 
out my service under them, given both directly and through their 
representatives at London, Paris, and Rome. 

In the descriptions of the terrain the author has profited 
much from the published works of French students, especially the 
series of admirable geographic monographs which includes Raoul 
Blanchard's "La Flandre," Albert Demangeon's "La Picardie," 
Emile Chantriot's "La Champagne," and the smaller work of 
Bertrand Auerbach entitled "Le plateau lorrain." Frequent 
citations of these works will be found in the text, but it is only fair 
to state that in endeavoring to paint for the reader a picture of 
each battlefield the author has, consciously and doubtless also 
unconsciously, drawn upon the works in question to an extent 
which cannot fully be indicated by specific citations. His own 
mental image of the battlefields is due to the excellent descrip- 
tions of his French colleagues, as well as to his personal studies 
on the ground; and if the attempt to transmit this image 
to the reader has been successful, no small share of the credit 
must go to the distinguished Frenchmen who are well-known 
authorities on the geography of their country. For detailed 
illustrations of the influence of different topographic elements 
upon certain phases of the fighting, Arthur Conan Doyle's 
volumes on the British campaigns in France and Flanders have 
repeatedly been laid under tribute, because they present in 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

a telling manner the reaction of individual units to the difficul- 
ties which opposed them. 

For those photographic illustrations which are not from the 
author's own negatives, acknowledgments are due to the Photo- 
graphic Services of the French, British, Italian, and Belgian 
armies, as indicated under each reproduction in the text. The 
block diagrams, with one exception, were prepared under the 
author's general direction by three of his former students: Pro- 
fessor F. K. Morris, of Pci Yang University, Tientsin, China; 
Professor A. K. Lobeck, of the University of Wisconsin; and 
Professor S. H. Knight of the University of Wyoming. As the 
author has modified these drawings to meet special needs dis- 
covered during the preparation of the text, it is but just for him 
to credit their excellence to his three colleagues, without making 
them responsible for the precise form in which the drawings now 
appear. In drawing the generalized sketch maps of the battle- 
fields the author has adopted the simple and effective method 
employed by Professor W. M. Davis in his "Handbook of 
Northern France," and in some cases has utilized portions of his 
maps, modified to meet the needs of the present volume. 

To Miss Ellen Churchill Sem pie thanks ?re due for permission 
to use certain data assembled by her relating to the passes and 
routes of the Alps. The Library of Columbia University has 
extended exceptional courtesies both in the matter of placing 
large numbers of books, maps, and other documents at the 
author's disposal while he was absent from the city, and in pro- 
viding expert assistance in tracing records and verifying data 
essential to the work. Special acknowledgments are made to 
Miss I. G. Mudge, Reference Librarian, for invaluable assistance 
throughout the preparation of the manuscript. A very heavy 
debt of gratitude is owed my colleagues in the Department of 
Geology at Columbia University, whose generous sympathy and 
fraternal assistance have alone made it possible to complete the 
work in the allotted time. 

To the American Geographical Society, and to its Director, 
Dr. Isaiah Bowman, it is a pleasure to record the author's hearty 



xxvi BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 

appreciation of the warm support they have given his under- 
taking from its very inception. Not only has the financial sup- 
port been prompt and generous, but in such matters as the pro- 
viding of needed secretarial assistance, the preparation of maps 
and diagrams, and the meeting of other needs which arose in the 
course of the work, the author's every request has met an imme- 
diate and cordial response from the Society and its officers. 
Many improvements in the text have resulted from the valuable 
suggestions of the Society's Research Editor, Mr. W. L. G. Joerg, 
to whose untiring co-operation the author is indebted for much 
aid which lay far beyond the usual limits of editorial assistance. 
Finally, it is the author's privilege to express his thanks to 
General Tasker H. Bliss, who generously undertook to read the 
proof sheets of this volume, and who brought to the task an un- 
equaled breadth of knowledge based on his long and dis- 
tinguished military, career, his membership on the Inter-Allied 
Supreme War Council and on the Armistice Commission, and his 
service as one of the five American Commissioners to Negotiate 
Peace. A similar friendly service was performed by General 
Francis Vinton Greene, whose intimate knowledge of military 
history and well-known ability as an author and critic made his 
suggestions and criticisms extremely helpful. To both General 
Bliss and General Greene the author would acknowledge a very 
great debt of gratitude. Many improvements in the text have 
resulted from their generous assistance ; but on the author alone 
rests the responsibility for statements of fact and expressions of 
views which the text sets forth. 

Douglas Wilson Johnson 

Columbia University 
December 31, 1920 



CHAPTER I 

THE BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS: 
THE WET CLAY PLAIN BATTLEFIELD 

One afternoon in September, 191 8, a British staff automobile 
left corps headquarters "somewhere in Flanders," sped eastward 
over good roads for a few miles, then plowed into the ruts and 
mud holes of a newly recaptured portion of His Majesty King 
Albert's dominions. It was typical Flanders weather, for a driz- 
zling rain was falling and low clouds or banks of fog drifted over 
the plain. The machine skidded into a slimy shell hole and half 
overturned. Three officers stepped out, belted their raincoats 
tighter about them, and slopped on through the sea of mud, into 
the wall of mist. 

A quarter of an hour later you might have seen them toiling 
up the slope of a low hill along a sandy path winding pictur- 
esquely through a wood of conifers, each heavy step weighted 
down with a mass of clay which clung tenaciously to boot and 
spur and picked up sand, leaves, and twigs from the narrow trail. 
Muddy and bedraggled, the three crept in between the sand bag 
walls of a shelter near the crest and waited. The chill wind drove 
the lowering clouds about them, and through the gray curtain 
there came from the north, east, and south the rumble and crash 
of a great battle. Then, as if raised by magic hands, the fog 
curtain slowly lifted and parted. A flood of golden sunshine 
burst through, lighting up a vast green-carpeted plain on which 
rivers and ponds glittered like silver spangles. Stretching in a 
vast crescent across the stage thus revealed to the waiting 
observers was a line of flashing tongues of flame, a semicircle of 
steel and fire which, from the sea on the northwest to the uplands 
of. Artois far away to the southward, was slowly blasting the 

Note. For Chapters I and II the reader should constantly consult the detailed 
map of the battlefield in the pocket (PI. I) and the block diagrams (Figs. 14 and 36). 



2 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

Kaiser's hordes back into the Fatherland. It was the last great 
Battle of Flanders in full swing, and from the summit of Mont 
Kemmel our officers were with their glasses sweeping the vast field 




Fig. i — Index map to the maps of the battlefields of the western front. For each 
rectangular area shown here there will be found in the text a generalized sketch 
map (Figs. 2, 24, 56, 79, 98), and in the pocket at the back of the volume a detailed 
large-scale map (Pis. I-V), both of which should be consulted while reading the 
two chapters devoted to each battlefield. 



from end to end. For the low sandy hill, scarcely to be discovered 
when one stands among the trees and orchards of the plain, is 
none other than the famous "Mount" (Fig. 3), stained red with 
the blood of many thousands and standing in the very center of a 



GENERAL ASPECT 



battlefield which numbers its victims by the hundreds of thou- 
sands. Its summit rises barely 500 feet above the sea and only 
350 feet over the adjacent plain; yet it is one of the dominating 
points of Flanders. In all the vast plain bounded on the north- 
west by the sea, on the south by the chalk uplands of the Somme 
battlefield and the foothills of the Ardennes, and extending east- 
ward beyond Brussels and 
Antwerp, there are only 
two other points higher; 
and both of these are in 
the same range of hills 
as Mont Kemmel. Look 
westward and one may 
see them, if the trees 
are not too much in the 
way: Mont des Cats 
(Fig. 4), some 550 feet 
high, with the lesser 
heights of Mont Rouge, 
Mont Noir, and others 
lying between; and far- 
ther on, at the western 
end of the ridge, the king 
of the Flemish moun- 
tains, Mont Cassel, 
boasting all of 560 feet. 
But one does ill to scoff 
at these tiny mounds, 
which over-enthusiastic patriots have compared with the Alps. 
Each summit commands a view of which a real mountain 
would have no cause to be ashamed: in the foreground a 
charming landscape of green meadows bordered by rows of 
trees and dotted with red- tiled farmhouses; here and there 
a shady grove or picturesque Flemish village; far away to 
the northwest the green of trees and meadows, bounded by 
a thin band of white, the sand dunes along the coast. The 




Fig. 2 — Generalized sketch map of the Battle- 
field of Flanders. Ruled areas are uplands; the 
dotted area is a coal field. For the topographic 
details and place names referred to in the text 
see PI. I and Figs. 14 and 36. 



4 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

eye sweeps the vast plain (Fig. 23) to the north, east, and south 
and is arrested only when it discovers to the southwest, barely 
emerging from the blue mist on the horizon, a low elevation 
which can be nothing else than the historic Vimy Ridge. 

The view is broad, not because the hill is high but because the 
plain is so extremely flat. One is tempted to say "absolutely 
flat," and the exaggeration would be pardonable. Very few places 




Fig. 3 — Mont Kemmel, a strong point near the apex of the natural "Ypres bas- 
tion." Although of moderate elevation only, it offered commanding observation 
over a vast expanse of the plain; and hence its possession was bitterly contested 
in important battles. When the photograph was taken the Germans held the 
eastern (right-hand) portion of the hill, the British the main crest. 



in Europe can show a surface so nearly level. Roads, railways, 
and canals cross the country in every direction, and usually in 
straight lines, for seldom is there even a modest elevation to be 
avoided. The whole extent of Flanders provides but a single 
railway tunnel, and a canal may run for many miles without a 
lock. The rivers seem to flow on the plain instead of cutting 
valleys in it, and hills are so rare that even the most insignificant 
attracts more attention than many alpine crags. Houses and 
trees are usually the most imposing features in the landscape. 
Surely if ever a region was fully entitled to the term plain, 
Flanders is that region. 



GENERAL ASPECT 5 

Of the battlefields of the World War the rolling surface of 
the Somme region just to the south can best be compared with 
the Flanders plain. Yet how few the elements of correspondence, 
how many the points of contrast! Two different worlds seem to 
come together where the chalk of the Somme region meets the 
clay of Flanders. One is a rolling upland, the other a level low- 
land. The even-flowing, clear streams of the chalk country do 



: : - 



1 



Fig. 4 — Mont des Cats, in the middle distance, rising slightly above the general 
level of the plain of Flanders and serving as a natural observatory of the highest 
importance. 

not in the least suggest the unruly rivers whose turbid waters 
repeatedly flood the fields and homes of the Flemish peasant. 
The boundless horizon of the treeless Somme plain is poorly 
counterfeited in the usual view on the plain of Flanders, where 
apparent vastness is nullified by the trees which limit one's 
vision. Nothing could be farther apart than the aridity of the 
chalk surface and the humidity of the water-soaked clay plain. 
The dreary stretches of open fields on the chalk, devoid of human 
habitation except where thickly clustered dwellings form a 
village, find no counterpart in the green, tree-bordered meadows 
and gardens among which are scattered the homes of the widely 
disseminated Flemish population (cf. Figs. 11 and 12). Surely the 
imagination can picture no two geographic regions belonging in 



6 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

the same class which are more dissimilar than the plain of Artois 
and Picardy and the plain of Flanders. 

The real dissimilarities are so pronounced that they lead to 
belief in others which do not exist. Ask the peasant who knows 
both regions, whether it rains more in Artois or Flanders, and he 
will tell you the latter receives much more rain. Yet there is only 
one place in all Flanders where the rainfall is not less than the 
lowest rainfall on the Artois upland. 1 The smaller rainfall on the 
flat clay plain cannot quickly escape, and produces a far greater 
impression on man than does the heavier rainfall, which soon 
disappears into the fissured chalk. Again, ask the peasant 
whether the wet and dry seasons are the same in Artois and in 
Flanders, and he may answer that there is no dry season in Flan- 
ders; that it rains often and much, the year round. But the 
Flemish rivers rise in the summer and autumn, and a study of sta- 
tistics demonstrates that, while the sky of this country is much of 
the time overcast and some rain falls on an average nearly every 
other day throughout the year, the greatest precipitation occurs 
in the summer and autumn months. The peasant remarks the 
many days of rain but does not measure the quantity; and the 
soldier is apt to be like him. He is more affected by the length of 
time he shivers in wet clothing and stands in wet trenches than by 
the amount of water that falls on him. Therefore he will tell you 
that the low belt of plain nearest the coast is the rainiest part of 
Flanders, when in reality it is the zone of least precipitation; 
and will yearn for the "less humid country" to the south, where 
nearly twice as much rain falls! The physical conditions of the 
Flanders battlefield responsible for such effects will soon claim 
our attention. 

Strategic Importance of the Flanders Battlefield 

To one standing on the Mont des Cats and looking out across 
the low plain of Flanders eastward toward Brussels, Antwerp, 
and the gateway of Liege, southward toward Arras and the 

1 Raoul Blanchard: La Flandre: Etude geographique de la plaine flamande en 
France, Belgique et Hollande, Paris, 1906, p. 27. 



STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 7 

gateway to Paris, westward toward the sea and the Channel 
ports, the strategic significance of the region cannot be wholly 
lost. It forms part of that great belt of plain across which one 
may travel by rail from the Pyrenees to northeastern Russia 
without passing through a single tunnel and without rising 600 
feet above the level of the sea. Across it lies the only path by 
which armies may advance into France without encountering 
formidable mountain or plateau barriers. But it is more than a 
pathway; it is one of the important meeting places of northern 
and southern Europe. English, Dutch, Danes, Scandinavians, 
and Germans from the north, Venetians, Genoese, Spaniards, 
and Frenchmen from the south, have throughout the centuries 
met on the Flanders plain in commercial intercourse or armed 
conflict. Whether one prefers the view that "Flanders occupies 
perhaps the most superb international situation which exists in 
Europe," or the more pessimistic conception that "when God had 
made this good Flanders he put it between all in order that it 
might be devoured by one after another," he cannot doubt the 
very great significance of its location. On its level surface have 
been fought out some of the greatest struggles of history: a few of 
them slowly and unimpressively, like the conflict between the 
Latin and Teutonic tongues; many of them in the rush and 
furor of battle, when the warriors of many nations clashed in 
arms and some of the world's famous generals made or lost their 
reputations in the mud and marshes of the plain. This battle- 
field of the World War has always been the battleground of 
Europe. 

In 1914 the Flanders plain offered the German General Staff 
something more than the smoothest pathway between moun- 
tains and sea along which to launch its enveloping movement 
designed to crush the French armies in the space of a few weeks. 
The plain was provided with that abundant network of roads, 
railways, and canals which is the natural product of a dense 
population inhabiting a region of very little relief. Nowhere else 
could the Germans find such admirable facilities for transporting 
and supplying a great army. An intelligent agriculture had 



8 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

made the loamy parts of the plain highly productive, while the 
region was also noted for its rich pastures and its cattle. Here, 
then, was the food supply necessary for the support of unex- 
ampled concentrations of men. Once in undisputed possession 
of the plain, the Teuton armies could continue southward through 
the low gateway (p. 92) between the Ardennes Mountains and 
the upland of Artois, to outflank the French armies and capture 
Paris; or could strike farther west to gain the Channel ports, 
threaten British communications with the Continent, and bring 
to the very doors of England the menace of imminent invasion. 
The complete extinction of a country which had dared to antago- 
nize theGermancolossuswould be accomplished when all the Flan- 
ders plain was occupied, and a valuable lesson thereby given to 
other countries still neutral; while the political advantages to be 
derived from possession of Flanders at the end of the war would 
be enormous. Along the southern part of the Flanders plain lay 
the rich coal fields of northern France. About them had grown 
up densely populated industrial centers whose products were 
vital to the economic and military power of the Republic. To 
seize this region would strengthen Germany's fighting machine 
and weaken the opposition it would have to overcome. In 
German opinion the blow might well realize the aspiration of 
the Teutonic militarists, as expressed by Bernhardi, "to crush 
France so completely that she can never again come across 
our path." 

But if the Flanders plain offered Germany high inducements 
as a route for the invasion of France, it imposed obstacles pecu- 
liarly formidable. Far more important than any topographic bar- 
rier was the neutrality of Belgium, the violation of which by Ger- 
many would call into action moral and material forces capable of 
exerting a decisive influence upon the issue of the conflict. Even 
the topographic obstacles were far more serious than they may 
have appeared; and as soon as Allied man power should be as- 
sembled for their defense they would prove impassable. Notwith- 
standing the fact that both the Central Powers and the Allies 
repeatedly launched major offensives on the Flanders plain, not 



SURFACE FEATURES 9 

one of them was successful after the first German onrush in 
1914 before the natural barriers were adequately defended, until 
the Allied advance late in 191 8 after the German armies had . 
already been defeated elsewhere and compelled to begin their 
withdrawal to shorter lines. On the Somme plain, along the 
Chemin des Dames, farther south on the Marne plateau, and 
elsewhere, great drives succeeded; but on the Flanders plain all 
failed because of physical obstacles which deserve our careful 
consideration. 

It is to the detailed topography of the Flanders plain that 
we must now turn our attention. Beginning thus with the 
lowest, flattest, and most monotonous of all the battlefields of 
the World War, we shall pass next to the slightly higher and more 
dissected plain of the Somme, then in orderly sequence to the 
trenched plateau of the Marne, the still higher plateaus of the 
Verdun country with their intervening lowland belts, the loftier 
domes and ridges of the Vosges, and finally to the towering 
peaks and precipices of the Alps and the complex mazes of the 
Balkan ranges. 

Surface Features of the Flanders Battlefield 

Look over the Flanders plain from the summit of Mont des 
Cats and you will see no evidence of system in the topography. 
Rivers and canals seem to run at will in every direction across 
the level surface, while the few low hills are scattered irregularly 
here and there. Now take a detailed topographic map of the 
region and search there for any sign of symmetry in the surface 
of the country which might escape the more limited vision of the 
unaided eye. Again all seems hopeless confusion. Rivers change 
to canals and back again to rivers, and wander aimlessly toward 
the ocean or directly away from it. Roads and railways make a 
confused network without suggesting any definite pattern 
imposed by the form of the land. Here and there an isolated 
hill or low ridge rises suddenly out of the vast expanse of 
plain. The ridge may trend east-west or north-south. And 
who shall say whether the Mont Cassel-Mont Kemmel ridge 



10 



BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 



Upper sand formatio 



Cloy formation 



should be continued eastward to connect with the scattered 
hills beyond the valley of the Lys, or whether it bends sharply 
northward to form an integral part of the Messines-Passchen- 
daele swelling? As for the forest patches, what could be 
more "hit-or-miss" than their distribution? 

Nevertheless there is order in 
the apparent chaos. To see and 
appreciate it we need only know 
the very simple geological struc- 
ture of the region. The rocks are 
the skeleton upon which Nature 
fashions the varied forms which 
we behold upon the earth's sur- 
face; and, just as the artist must 
begin by studying the human 
skeleton if he would end by 
painting aright the beauty of 
the human form, so must a 
knowledge of rock structure pre- 
cede any understanding of the 
beauties of natural landscapes. 
Fortunately in this case the task 
is an easy one. 

If we omit certain beds, of im- 
portance only beyond the limits 
of the region which particularly 
interests us, we need consider but 
four formations as responsible for the form of the Battlefield of 
Flanders (Fig. 5). At the base is the chalk, really characteristic 
of the Somme battlefield to the south and only appearing in the 
southern portion of the Flanders field to give a transition zone 
possessing some features common to both regions. Patches of 
clay of variable thickness lie in irregular depressions in its sur- 
face. Next above comes a series of argillaceous sands, sometimes 
partially consolidated to form sandstones, from 130 to 170 feet in 
total thickness. For sake of convenience we will call this "the 




Lower Sand formation 



Chalk formation 

(with clay in 

surface depressions) 



Fig. S — Geological column show- 
ing the succession of formations 
responsible for the topography of 
the Flanders battlefield. 



SURFACE FEATURES n 

lower sand formation." Overlying it is a great deposit of clay, in 
places nearly 600 feet thick, containing lenses of sand scattered 
throughout its mass. It is the formation which more than all 
others is responsible for the typical Flemish landscape. Let us 
call it simply "the clay formation." In its upper portion the clay 
formation gets more and more sandy until it merges with the 
overlying series of beds, "the upper sand formation." This con- 
sists for the most part of loose sands with layers of clay frequently 
interspersed, but toward the top the sands are partially consoli- 
dated into more resistant sandstone, while one layer is of con- 
glomerate. The total thickness of the upper sand formation is 
not great in the central part of the region under discussion but 
reaches several hundred feet farther north. Geologists have sub- 
divided these several formations into a much larger number of 
beds and given each a special name; but for our purposes the 
simpler division is sufficient. 

Well records show that all four formations dip gradually down- 
ward toward the north or northeast (Fig. 6). Now it is the rule 
that, when a series of inclined beds is beveled across by erosion to 
form a plain, that plain is "belted," i. e. has parallel zones differing 
in surface form or character of soil, or both, according as different 
formations are exposed. Thus parts of our own Atlantic coastal 
plain have a cotton belt, a pine belt, and a rice belt, named from 
the products of the soil formed on three different rock types suc- 
cessively appearing at the surface. The Flanders plain is no 
exception to the rule, as will appear from Figures 6 and 7. Each 
of the four formations described above produces a characteristic 
surface zone, except that the chalk, disappearing and reappearing 
as a result of changes in the inclination of the beds, gives a mixed 
or transition zone toward the southeast, but does not show at all 
in the plain southwest of Hazebrouck (Fig. 7). The lower sand 
formation is represented by a narrow southern sand belt, the thick 
clay formation by a broad clay belt, and the upper sand forma- 
tion by a northern sand belt. 

Turn again to the map (PI. I) and, remembering that sandy 
soils are apt to be poor and hence not so completely stripped of 



12 



BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 



their forests, note the distribution of woodlands. It will now 
appear that there is a southern zone where woods are more 
numerous than usual, extending from near St. Omer to the 
vicinity of Orchies, southeast of Lille. These woods are either on 
the southern sand belt or near the southern edge of the clay belt 
where the clay is thinnest; except that about Orchies itself they 
are in the transition belt. A geological map of the Orchies region 
would show that there is here an oval basin in the chalk, with the 
clay formation in its center and the lower sand formation outcrop- 
ping all around the sides, between the chalk and clay, as shown 




Fig. 6 — Generalized north-south cross-section across the Battlefield of Flanders, 
showing the "belted" plain resulting from the northward inclination of the geologi- 
cal formations. 



near the right side of Figure 7. The forests really describe an oval 
surrounding Orchies, following the pattern of the lower sand 
formation; but the eastern end of the oval lies beyond the 
limits of our map. North of Roulers there is a second zone of 
more abundant forested areas, corresponding to the northern 
sand belt. Between the two zones stretches a less forested 
region, in the midst of which the sand-capped ridge of Mont 
Cassel-Mont Kemmel is partly wooded. Assuredly there are 
other patches of forest the presence of which is to be explained 
on various grounds; but already there begins to appear some 
semblance of system in the surface features of the Flanders plain. 
If the different formations of the plain have varying resistances 
to erosion, the dipping beds ought to produce, in addition to soil 
belts, corresponding belts of varying relief. Thus the dipping 
beds of the coastal plain of England give the parallel sloping up- 
lands, or "cuestas", of the Chiltern Hills and the Cotswold Hills, 
separated by the Oxford lowland ; and the inclined layers of the 



SURFACE FEATURES 



13 



Paris Basin form a remarkable series of parallel cuestas which 
exercised an important influence on the grand strategy of the 
war. 2 In both of these cases the rocks making the cuesta uplands 
were very resistant as compared with the weaker beds eroded into 
lowlands. When, as in the Flanders plain, there are no really re- 
sistant beds, but all are weak and worn down to a low surface, we 

can expect to find only a faint de- 
velopmentof uplands, corresponding 
to such faint differences of resistance 
to erosion as may exist between un- 
consolidated clays and unconsoli- 
dated sands. When we study the 
map with this moderate expectation 
in mind, we are not disappointed. 
The Mont Cassel-Mont Kemmel 
ridge, capped by the upper sand 
formation in which there are some 
layers partially consolidated, ap- 
pears to be the remnant of an east- 
west trending upland or cuesta 
which had its continuation in hills 
extending on eastward beyond the 
limits of the battlefield (Fig. 2). 
From near Dixmude a second line of low hills — much lower, it 
is true, and more irregular in form, but having generally a 
steeper slope toward the south and a gently sloping upland 
toward the north — suggests by its typical asymmetrical form and 
by its position the remnants of a cuesta trending parallel to the 
Mont Cassel-Mont Kemmel ridge. Just north of it is a third 
cuesta-like elevation, also very low and inconspicuous but not 
wholly without significance. Both of these northern cuestas 
(Fig. 2) are located in the upper sand formation (Figs. 5 and 6). 
On the basis of this interpretation the Messines-Passchendaele 
ridge is part of the gentle backslope of the Mont Cassel-Mont 

2 D. W. Johnson: Topography and Strategy in the War, New York, 1017, pp. 
1-49. See also Chapters V-X, below. 




Fig. 7 — Diagrammatic sketch 
map of the topographic belts of 
the Flanders battlefield. 



i 4 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

Kemmel cuesta, left uneroded between the headwaters of certain 
branches of the Lys River on the east and of the Yser River on 
the west (Fig. 2). 

Where sloping uplands of the cuesta type are developed, the 
river system ordinarily shows a certain systematic relation to 
the cuestas and lowlands. Some rivers, often the principal ones, 
flow down the initial slope of the plain, which is down the dip of 
the beds, crossing cuestas and lowlands more or less nearly at 
right angles; others flow parallel to each other through the 
lowlands which they have eroded on the weaker beds, to join the 
streams of the first type or to enter the sea directly. Thus the 
Thames flows southeast down the dip of the English coastal 
plain beds, joined by smaller streams coming into it from the 
Oxford and other parallel lowlands, while the Severn and the 
Cam flow through the lowlands directly to the sea. We may now 
discover that the rivers of the Flemish plain have also a trace of 
this same systematic arrangement. The upper Yser, the Lys, the 
Deule past Lille, and, beyond the limits of our map, the Scheldt, 
Dendre, and others flow northeastward down the dip of the for- 
mations. The branch of the Yser following the marshy lowland 
from near Lichtervelde westward past Handzaeme to Dixmude 
lies in the lowland between the first and second cuestas; the 
stream which now forms the Bruges-Ghent canal follows the low- 
land between the second and third cuestas described above, and 
other short streams or canals show a similar orientation; while the 
lower Aa flows from St. Omer northwestward directly to the sea. 
If one shades heavilyon a map those parts of the rivers and canals 
trending from southwest to northeast down the dip of the rocks, 
or northwest-southeast (often nearly east-west) at right angles to 
the direction of dip, he will be surprised to note what a large 
proportion of the drainage system falls into one or the other of 
these two classes. The fact that the principal streams trend 
strongly toward the northeast, while the streams in the low- 
lands are usually not at right angles to them but more nearly 
east- west in their trend, has been explained by the fact that the 
uppermost beds, on which the principal rivers first took their 



SURFACE FEATURES 15 

course to the sea, had more of a northeastward slant than the 
lower beds, in which the branch rivers later cut their lowlands. 
However that may be, we need only remember that there is a 
system of northeast-flowing rivers and canals in Flanders, crossed 
by another system trending more or less nearly east-west, how- 
ever much they may be obscured by other watercourses travers- 
ing the level plain in all possible directions. 

After the four principal formations of the region had been 
beveled by erosion to form the four topographic belts already 
described, the northwestern part of the plain was depressed below 
the sea and covered with 60 to 70 feet of marine sands. Then the 
sea withdrew, and the submerged area changed to a fresh-water 
morass in which peat was formed in thicknesses varying from a 
few inches to as much as ten feet or more. During the fourth 
and fifth centuries of the Christian era the sea again covered this 
maritime zone, burying the peat under five or ten feet of sand 
and clay. As these deposits gradually built up to the surface of 
ordinary high tide, and as the formation of the dune ridge along 
the coast and the building of artificial dikes helped to keep out 
the sea, we now have a fifth belt some ten miles broad, cutting 
across the other belts at an oblique angle and often called the 
"maritime plain" (Fig. 7). 

Over the surface of Flanders there is spread a thin coating of 
loam which usually conceals from view the older formations pre- 
viously described. This loam is sandy toward the bottom, more 
clayey in its upper part. Where it mantles the clay formation 
of the extensive clay belt it is as a whole much more argillaceous 
than where it covers the sand belts. Apparently the underlying 
formation influences the character of the thin overlying loam. 
Certainly it is the fundamental beds which determine the 
topographic belts of Flanders, for the superficial mantle of loam 
affects the topography but little. Only on the chalk of the tran- 
sition belt do we find the loam fundamentally different from the 
basal formation. There it plays an independent role of some 
importance, as we shall see when we study its typical develop- 
ment in the Battlefield of the Somme. In Flanders the loam 



16 



BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 







CO i> 

CD <« 



to d 



TRANSITION BELT 17 

reflects the form and character of the underlying beds so well that 
one is apt to lose sight of it in describing the features of the 
country. 

THE TRANSITION BELT 

Let us, having in mind the general picture of the Flanders 
battlefield which we have just gained, consider next those fea- 
tures of the different topographic belts most likely to affect mili- 
tary operations. The transition belt lies lower than the Somme 
battlefield to the south but higher than the typical Flanders plain 
farther north. From the base of Vimy Ridge the rolling chalk 
surface, partly coated with loam, slopes gradually downward 
toward the northeast, forming the faintly inclined plane which 
the natives call the Gohelle (Fig. 6). It is in the deeper rocks, 
under this part of the chalk, that are found the coal deposits 
mined at Lens and neighboring localities. 

A typical view of the Gohelle may be had from the summit of 
Vimy Ridge (Fig. 8). The nearly treeless undulations of the chalk 
appear barren and dreary in contrast with the tree-bordered 
gardens and meadows of the clay plain beyond. An occa- 
sional woodland patch and lines of trees along the roads relieve 
the monotony of open fields. Villages are numerous, but they are 
usually the ugly corons, long rows of red-roofed miners' houses, 
built together and all of the same plain style of architecture. 
Uglier still are the huge black dumps of waste from the mines, 
often wrongly called slag piles, which may rise a hundred feet 
or more above the surface of the plain and form the most promi- 
nent feature in the landscape. Their "command" of the adja- 
cent country gave them a high military value. For, while less flat 
than the clay plain farther north, the Gohelle is nevertheless a 
surface of such faint relief that from an elevation of a hundred 
feet the observation is really commanding. From our vantage 
point on Vimy Ridge not only are Givenchy-en-Gohelle, Vimy, 
Oppy, and other near-by villages in full view, but the great mining 
center of Lens, Drocourt where began the Drocourt-Queant 
switch of the Hindenburg Line, Loos of bloody memory, and even 
the more distant Vermelles and the towers of Vv ingles are easily 



1 8 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

distinguished, together with a score of other villages and towns 
which help to make up this important mining district. Topo- 
graphic barriers are few; but the underground workings of the 
mines provide secure shelter for vast quantities of military stores; 
the corons and other villages and towns are well adapted to serv- 
ing as fortified strong points in a network of trenches; cellars and 
caverns in the chalk offer concealment and protection from bom- 
bardment to large bodies of troops; the mine dumps give valuable 
observation ; while the network of roads, tramways, and railways 
necessary to serve a mining region furnish abundant means of 
transport for military purposes. Except for its lower relief and 
the presence of the coal mines and their accessory features, the 
military aspects of the Gohelle resemble those of the Somme 
battlefield farther south. We will reserve fuller discussion of the 
effect of the chalk upon military operations until we consider its 
typical development in that field. 

Among the few topographic barriers in the chalk of the transi- 
tion belt the marshy valleys of the Scarpe and Sensee Rivers 
deserve special attention. The Sensee might be taken as the 
boundary between the transition belt of the Flanders plain and 
the typical chalk plain of the Somme; and both it and the Scarpe 
have their sources in the latter region. But their military history 
has perhaps been more particularly bound up with that of the 
Battlefield of Flanders. Both rivers have long been regarded by 
French military authorities as important links in the northern 
defensive system of their country. The broad marshy valley of 
the Scarpe (Fig. 9) prolonged eastward, from near Arras, the 
natural barriers of Vimy Ridge and the rectilinear valleys of the 
Canche and Authie. Today the stream is canalized for much of 
its course, and the marshes partly drained; but inundations can 
still turn the valley into a serious military obstacle. At its junc- 
tion with the Scheldt the river helps to make a natural quadri- 
lateral, formerly of much military importance, enclosing the 
great Forest of Raismes, bounded on three sides by marshy river 
valleys capable of being inundated at will and further strength- 
ened by military engineering works at three of the corners. The 



TRANSITION BELT 19 

marshes of the Sensee are broader than those of the Scarpe, and 
much of the area "is at all times of the year a large bog or quag- 
mire and, following heavy rains, a veritable lake almost a 
kilometer in breadth, at some points filling the river basin. On 
each bank peat bogs prevent access to the stream. The Sensee 




Fig. 9 — The marshes of the Scarpe, from earliest days one of the important 
natural defensive barriers of northern France. Compare this humid, verdure-clad 
valley with the dry chalk upland shown in Figs. 29 and 43. (From a photograph by 
A. Demangeon.) 

Canal and the stream itself make the valley still more impassa- 
ble. ... In case of war, locks permit raising the water surface 
2 meters higher." The junction of the marshy Sensee with the 
marshy Scheldt at Bouchain (Fig. 42) has always been a point of 
much strategic value. The northern side of the famous quadri- 
lateral known as Caesar's Camp (p. 125) was formed by the 
Sensee marshes, and Bouchain defended one of its corners. 

When the French under Marshal Villars were striving in 1710- 
171 1 to prolong the struggle against the Allies, led by the brilliant 
Marlborough, they took refuge behind the Scarpe and Sensee 



20 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

barriers. Villars inundated the Scarpe to Biache eight miles 
east of Arras- by damming it, whence the line crossed to the 
Sensee marshes by a canalized depression which was likewise 
flooded. Thus were these natural obstacles organized into a part 
of the famous ne plus ultra line which taxed the military genius of 
Marlborough to the utmost. The floods of the Sensee could be 
crossed only on two causeways, one at Arleux* and the other 
at Aubigny, both of which were protected by fortifications. So 
formidable was the barrier that it could not be taken by direct 
assault, and Marlborough had recourse to a most remarkable 
and complicated stratagem which resulted in giving him posses- 
sion of the crossings. 3 Marlborough's despatches are filled with 
references to the "morasses" of the Sensee, Scarpe, and Scheldt 
which now prevented him from attacking the French, now pro- 
tected him from enemy assaults. 

In 1794 the French and their Allied enemies were again facing 
each other across the barrier of the Sensee marshes. These 
are but scattered instances in a long history in which the Scarpe 
and Sensee played an important role, the later chapters of which 
saw the French Army of the North retreating behind the line of 
the Scarpe after being defeated by the Prussians near Amiens in 
1870, and the Germans shielding themselves from Allied attacks 
by flooding the Sensee marshes during the war of 1914-1918. 

The chalk of the Gohelle dips under the oval basin containing 
the lower sand and the clay formations (Fig. 7). Within this oval, 
rudely outlined by forest patches following the lower sand out- 
crops (p. 12), one finds the typical landscapes of the low clay plain 
characteristic of most of the Flanders battlefield. It is a bit of 
real Flanders in the midst of the chalk, and has been given a spe- 
cial name, the Pevele. The regional name is sometimes attached 
to a village name, after the French custom, as in the case of Mons- 
en-Pevele. Beyond the basin the chalk again bulges up to the sur- 
face, forming the region called Melantois just south of Lille and 

* Unless otherwise stated, places mentioned in Chapters I and II may readily be 
located on PL I in the pocket, on or near the river or other topographic feature with 
which the names are associated in the text. 

3 J. W. Fortescue: A History of the British Army, 7 vols, to date, London, 1899- 
191 2; reference in Vol. 1, pp. 540-547. 



SOUTHERN SAND BELT 21 

Carembault farther southwest (Fig. 6). Both these regions 
repeat the topographic features characteristic of the chalk plain 
of Gohelle, except that the elements contributed by the coal 
mines are largely lacking. 

THE SOUTHERN SAND BELT 

As the lower sand formation outcrops only as a narrow band 
and is there characterized by no particularly resistant or non- 
resistant layers, it does not exercise a striking effect upon the 
landscape. Forest patches are, however, a little more frequent 
on or near it, and the bare hills of the chalk begin to give place to a 
more pleasing landscape of meadows and gardens interspersed 
with trees. The sand formation has, furthermore, real importance 
as a source of water supply. Rainfall penetrating the porous sand 
descends to great depths, held in by the clay covering of the chalk 
below and by the great clay formation of Flanders above. Wells 
driven through the clay formation to pierce the lower sands give 
some of the most abundant flows of water in all Flanders. This is 
an item of considerable military importance, for we shall discover 
that, curiously enough, in the water-soaked plain of Flanders it is 
a difficult matter to secure sufficient uncontaminated water to 
supply the large demands of a great army. 

THE CLAY BELT 

It is on the low, flat clay plain that the topography of Flanders 
finds its typical expression. The fact that the clay is fine-grained 
and not yet consolidated into rock makes it a more ready prey to 
erosion than the chalk. Hence it has been worn down more 
rapidly and to a much lower level than the upland of Artois, even 
lower than the chalk plain of Gohelle in the transition belt. As a 
whole the clay plain rises but slightly above the level of the sea. 
The rivers are very little lower than the interstream areas, and 
pronounced valleys like those in the chalk plain farther south are 
quite unknown. It has well been said that the whole of the plain 
is one great valley. If a river happens to cut against a low ele- 
vation in the clay so as to give a wall a few yards high, it is a 
topographic feature worthy of special remark. 



22 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

On so flat a surface the rainfall finds it difficult to flow away. 
Nor can it escape readily underground, for the clay is one of the 
most impervious formations imaginable. Unable to sink down- 
ward or to flow laterally, the water remains stagnant over large 
areas, forming ponds and marshes, or rises until it slowly creeps, 
halting and hesitating as to what course to take, toward one of 
the sluggish rivers which wander with apparent aimlessness over 
the level land. The ground is saturated with moisture, whether 
it be the clay itself outcropping at the surface or the thin deposit 
of clayey loam resting as a mantle upon it. Either one gives a 
sticky, slippery mud which is the abomination of Flanders. Even 
when it dries, as it does when some days of sunshine interrupt for 
longer than usual the succession of cloud, mist, and rain, the clay 
is an enemy of man; for the peasant cultivating the hardened soil 
must pour water on the plow and get men to help force the share 
into the ground as it moves painfully forward. The hardened 
mass cracks open in all directions, letting the next rain descend 
into the fissures to make the sides of the clay blocks so slippery 
that the divided mass glides on itself, thus producing a landslide 
where there is slope enough to permit its descent to obstruct 
some railway, road, or canal. 

Flanders Mud 

Flanders mud demands more than mere passing notice. In 
the early days, before metaled roads and railways had made their 
appearance and before the system of canals was so extensive as 
now, the mud made large parts of the country difficult of access — 
some parts absolutely inaccessible. This condition endured 
through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for 

in 1635 Bailleul could barely procure the necessaries of life during 
winter, and that thanks to navigation upon the becque, the roads being 
too bad. The intendant Barentin states in 1699 that the rich castellany 
of Cassel could not, on account of the lack of passable roads, distribute 
the provisions it produced nor assist neighboring castellanies suffering 
want. A project for the defense of the country after 1735 declares that 
between Armentieres and Cassel the main highways are impracticable 
almost the entire year. . . . The prefect Dieudonne in 1804 refers 



CLAY BELT 23 

sorrowfully to the bad condition of the roads "which have, in the nature 
of the soil, a perpetual cause of deterioration, the low, wet, and often 
peaty soil having no solidity." The state of the roads was still worse 
in the plain of the Lys. The character of the ground, even more clayey 
and wet than around Cassel and Ypres, rendered them impracticable 
in all seasons. In 1761 the town of St. Venant complained of being 
"inaccessible through the bad condition of the roads;" and in 1766 the 
sheriffs explain that in wet periods it is the mud which prevents approach 
to the town, while in dry periods it is the ruts which are so frightful 
"that it is impossible to pass either on horseback or in carriage without 
risk of smashing everything." For several years the old Roman road 
from Cassel to Arras remained impassable between Estaires and La 
Bassee at a spot called 'le Trou Gallot', "where opens an abyss which 
must cost the lives of all who pass that way." The only means for those 
on foot to traverse the country in winter (for travel by carriage was 
scarcely to be considered) was to jump step by step, on the blocks of 
Bethune sandstone [from the southern sand belt] which the foresight of 
the authorities had caused to be placed along the side of each road and 
which were called pierres de marchepied, or stepping stones; shod with 
shoes heavily metaled to prevent slipping upon the stones and disap- 
pearing in the mire up to the waist and armed with long poles to aid in 
jumping from one block to another, the people of the country became so 
used to this mode of traveling that accidents were rare. 4 

Today the main highways are paved and many of the lesser 
roads improved. But an army cannot restrict its movements to a 
limited number of roads; and, when it must fight in any given 
region, modern methods of warfare compel operations on almost 
every square foot of the terrain. Thus the mud of Flanders 
remains an element of the first importance with which military 
leaders perforce must reckon. When Philip Augustus let his 
army become trapped in the morass southwest of Ypres in 1197, 
he but shared the experience of many before and after him, from 
the days before the Roman conquest to the days when the Ger- 
man General Staff and the Allied commanders saw one great 
offensive after another stop short in the mud. It would be diffi- 
cult to enumerate all the ways in which the seemingly unfathom- 
able mud of Flanders affected the fighting powers of the opposing 
armies in the fateful years 1914-1918. The damage done by 

4 Blanchard, La Flandre, pp. 446-447. 



24 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

artillery fire was greatly reduced when the shells exploded in a 
sticky clay. Shell holes filled with water which could not drain 
away, turning the battlefield into an almost impassable morass 
which blocked the advance for which the bombardment was 
supposed to be a preparation. Munitions and other supplies 
could not be hurried forward in time to support an advance 
properly, and reinforcements of troops floundered in the mire 
behind the lines while their hard-pressed comrades were forced 
to relinquish captured positions for want of prompt assistance. 
Heavy guns could not leave the metaled roads, were delayed by 
the congested traffic confined to these narrow paths through the 
wet plain, and could not be distributed at will when they reached 
the firing line. Even the light field artillery used in supporting an 
attack had to be equipped with material for making the shell-torn 
surface passable before it could advance, and one artillery officer 
is reported to have said: "I am carrying forward my guns and 
ammunition, the material for making my road as I go along, and 
the material for fortifying my new position. . . I am half 
expecting orders to bring along an acre of ground with me, too." 5 
Assaulting columns found it difficult to scramble out of the 
slippery trenches and were mowed down by enemy fire as they 
advanced slowly through a tenacious clay into which they sank 
more than ankle deep. Rifles became so clogged that they could 
not be fired; and, when they were wrapped in cloth to keep the 
mechanism clean, were not ready for instant use. The wounded 
lay half buried in the mud, and many were suffocated. Even the 
well and strong were caught in. fatal mud traps, for detailed offi- 
cial reports on the operations in Flanders contain not infrequently 
such statements as "part of Company bogged in communication 
trench south of St. Eloi; two men smothered" and "three men 
suffocated in mud near Voormezeele." In a British assault on the 
low clay mound near St. Eloi in April, 1916, the attackers had to 
lie flat and distribute their weight evenly in order to prevent 
sinking into the mire. As it was, a number of the men were 
engulfed and suffocated. In many parts of the plain trenches 

6 Frank Fox: The Battles of the Ridges, London, 1918, p. 95. 



CLAY BELT 25 

slumped in so fast that new positions could not be consolidated, 
and important points captured at a heavy cost in lives had to be 
relinquished because the survivors could not protect themselves 
in the soft clay before heavy counterattacks were delivered. 
Even well-established trenches required constant repair. 

The effect of ever-present, everlasting mud on the morale of an 
army is a factor difficult to evaluate but certainly not to be 
ignored. The mere labor of keeping rifles, guns, shells, and other 
equipment dry and clean is alone a heavy task. The cleaning 
of gun carriages, automobiles, trucks, horses, and other means of 
transport adds to the burden. Superhuman efforts would be 
necessary to keep men and equipment up to that high standard of 
cleanliness which has earned for the British troops the enviable if 
somewhat unpoetic name of "the spit-and-polish army." In 
Flanders the soldier's best efforts left him discouraged. Forever 
busy cleaning the sticky deposit from himself and everything 
about him, he forever found himself and his equipment caked 
with the mire. Cold, wet, tired, and disgusted, the unhappy 
fighter in Flanders would crawl into his straw-floored dugout, 
leaving his clay-coated shoes at the entrance, and lie shivering as 
he cursed the eternal mud which was by far his worst enemy. 
The author has visited the fighting fronts from the sand dunes 
of the Belgian coast to the entrenched camp of Saloniki and 
observed during the conflict the conditions under which men 
fought from the polders below sea level to the glacier-clad heights 
of the Alps. He has no hesitation in saying that, of all the com- 
batants, those who fought on the plain of Flanders endured the 
most terrible physical conditions. 

The Rivers of the Clay Plain 

Mud is not the only enemy of an army condemned to operate 
on the clay plain. Although the rainfall is moderate and notably 
less than that on the arid chalk uplands of Artois, we have seen 
that it is held at the surface by the impervious clay and cannot 
escape rapidly from so flat a region. This excess of water makes 
trouble in numberless ways. Where it flows into the sluggish 



26 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

rivers they are flooded, for with their faint gradients they cannot 
rapidly discharge the large total volumes thus received. When 
they rise, their flood waters spread far and wide, because the 
country is so low and flat. Almost all the streams of the plain, 
from the smallest rivulet to larger rivers like the Lys, have one or 
more floods every year, especially in the late summer and fall 
and in the early winter. Half a dozen floods in the same stream in 
a single year are not unusual. In 1882 the Yser overflowed its 
banks fourteen times. The floods of the Lys are the most danger- 
ous of all in the Flemish plain, and the river has not inaptly 
been called "the scourge of Flanders." The rising waters not only 
submerge its broad, shallow valley and flood the city of Ghent, 
but force the Scheldt to back up and overflow its banks, fill the 
Bruges-Ghent canal to overflowing, and interfere with the regime 
of other canals connecting with its valley. 

Elaborate works have been undertaken to control the rivers. 
Many have been straightened and canalized, their rising waters 
are held in by dikes, their great breadth has often been reduced 
to a narrow channel, and the extensive marshes bordering their 
courses have been partly reclaimed. Yet even today disastrous 
floods are not unknown, and the marshes are still numerous. 
Where marsh and forest combine, as at Ploegsteert Wood in wet 
weather, the obstacle is peculiarly formidable and can only 
be threaded on wooden footbridges, or passerelles, raised above 
the morass. The river channels are barriers which armies may 
pass only with the aid of bridges, while the valley floors can be 
flooded by opening the dikes and the difficulty of passage thus 
greatly augmented. Almost every phase of the defensive value 
of rivers, marshes, and inundations discussed by Von Clause- 
witz in his classic work "On War" finds exemplification on the 
Battlefield of Flanders. 6 

The tactical and strategic value of the rivers of Flanders 
cannot be doubted by one who reads even a few pages of the long 
military history of this region. Froissart's "Chroniques" contain 
many references to the line of the Lys, among them the detailed 

6 Carl von Clausewitz: On War, London, 191 1, Vol. 2, pp. 263-295. 



CLAY BELT 27 

and quaint description of how in the latter part of the fourteenth 
century Philip van Artevelde commanded the destruction of all 
bridges over the river on a front of fifty miles or more, in order 
that it should be "not in the power of the King of France nor of 
his Frenchmen, that they should pass the river of the Lis." The 
advisers of the French King held the barrier in profound respect, 
and when asked, "This river of the Lis, is it so evil to pass that 
one cannot find passage save at the well-known crossings?" one of 
them replied, "Sire, yes; there is no ford, and the stream flows 
upon marshes which one cannot traverse." Some advised ascend- 
ing the river until the French army could pass around its 
source, others counseled turning northeast into another part of 
Flanders where the advance would be blocked by no such 
obstacle. Bolder spirits urged an attack on the river barrier, 
assuring the others that God would aid them to make a crossing; 
and their advice prevailed. But so difficult did the task prove 
that even those who urged the attack repented that they had 
not taken the long route round the river sources or marched in 
some other direction across an easier terrain. When success was 
finally achieved, it was by means of a surprise crossing effected 
secretly with small boats at a poorly guarded point. 7 In the 
succeedingpagesofthe"Chroniques"onereadsthesamecomplaints 
of marsh and mud, the same references to soldiers standing knee- 
deep in the mire, which became so familiar in the despatches of 
1914-1918. If we turn to the wars of the French Revolution, we 
find the Allied armies holding the line of the Lys early in 1794, 
then fleeing in disorder when the French capture a section of the 
barrier. Next it is the French who make the line of the Lys their 
position, advancing from and returning to it with the exigencies 
of the campaign. In the disastrous Allied offensive in May, 
known as the Battle of Tourcoing, Clerfayt's corps, one-fourth of 
the whole army, was held up by the French standing behind the 
Lys at Wervicq and so counted for nothing in the first day's 
operations. Two other columns were held up at the Marque, "a 
stream impassable except by bridges, owing to soft bottom and 

7 Jean Froissart: Chroniques, edit, de Lettenhove, Brussels, 1870, Vol. 10, pp. 
106-126. 



28 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

swampy banks." In the preceding year the line of the Yser at 
Bambecque was held so effectively by the Allies that ten times 
their number of Frenchmen were unable to dislodge them by 
direct attacks; while the line of the Yser-Ypres canal from 
Nieuport to Ypres, which was to figure so largely in the World 
War of 1914-1918, served as the main defensive position of the 
Allied armies' right wing in 1794. 8 

It is unnecessary to multiply instances in which the rivers of 
Flanders have in the past served as natural lines of defense. In 
the recent war the Lys again played an important defensive role, 
the Yser blocked some of the greatest offensives launched by 
the Germans, while other streams, including so small an example 
as Kemmel Brook, contributed in no small degree to the results of 
operations in the clay plain. Rivers and canals (Fig. 10) com- 
bined with the mud of the plain to oppose a serious obstacle to one 
of the most effective of modern offensive weapons. In most 
parts of the clay plain it was practically impossible to use tanks; 
in others, especially in more sandy and less humid areas, they 
were utilized, sometimes by equipping them with fascines of wood 
which could be dropped in front as the tanks advanced. But, not- 
withstanding this device to improve the terrain over which they 
moved, the work of the tanks on the low plain was never so effec- 
tive as on the chalk uplands farther south. As for cavalry, mili- 
tary writers have from earliest times pictured the difficulties occa- 
sioned that arm of the service by the endless network of small 
drainage ditches, the marshes, the larger canals, and the rivers. 
Artillery and even infantry find the drainage ditches an obstacle 
which forces them to keep to the roads or to the larger dikes of 
rivers and principal canals. 

Submerged Trenches and Dugouts 
The presence of an excess of water on or close below the surface 
proved a serious embarrassment in the operations of trench 
warfare. Where water stood in ponds or marshes in faint depres- 
sions of the low plain, trenches were impracticable. Elsewhere 
even shallow trenches might encounter the zone of permanent 

8 Fortescue, Vol. 4, Part I, Chs. 5 and 10. 



CLAY BELT 29 

saturation close below the surface, and so be permanently inun- 
dated. Even where the land was slightly higher, trenches in the 
clay caught rainfall which could not drain off through the imper- 
vious material. Hence the terrible sufferings of men compelled 
to stand in cold water or liquid mud ankle-deep, knee-deep, 
sometimes even waist-deep. What this means to an army can 




Fig. 10 — A canal used as a defense line and crossed by a temporary footbridge. 
(Belgian official photograph.) 

only be fully understood by one who has experienced it; but 
some idea of the truth can be gleaned from reading the reports 
of officers of all grades, now become part of the British War 
Office archives. As one report modestly observes, "The difficul- 
ties of this part of the country are worthy of note. The trenches 
are very wet, and the water is up to the men's knees in most 
places." Such phrases as "men knee-deep in water," "trenches full 
of liquid mud 2 to 3 feet deep," "trenches full of water 3 feet deep 
in places," "trenches untenable owing to flooding," "ground so 
wet only able to dig down 2 feet," occur in endless repetition. 



30 



BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 



One officer reports his men as "in pitiable condition coming out 
of trenches; wet through, caked with stinking mud from head 
to foot, and perishing with cold." The state of the men's feet 
became unbearable, and much space is devoted to casualties from 
this cause. Eight hundred men unable to walk were left behind in 




Fig. ii — Scattered population on the low plain of Flanders, where abundance 
of water close to the surface enables every farmer to have his well and his home in 
the midst of his fields. (From Lille sheet of 1:80,000 topographic map of France.) 
Compare with Fig. 12. 



a single village. The terse report of another officer speaks vol- 
umes: "Trenches full of liquid mud. Smelt horribly. Full of 
dead Frenchmen too bad to touch. Men quite nauseated." 
Can one marvel that the physical conditions of the Flanders 
battlefield tried the souls of men as they were tried nowhere else 
on the long fighting front? 

If deep trenches were hardly practicable, it goes without saying 
that still deeper dugouts and all that elaborate system of sub- 



CLAY BELT 



3i 



terranean fortifications which honeycombed the chalk of Artois 
and Picardy were impossible in the low clay plain. Small, shal- 
low dugouts were excavated in places; but shelters built on the 
surface of bags of earth and other material were essential over 
broad areas, while railway embankments, dikes, and other 




Fig. 12 — Compact villages grouped about wells in the Somme region, separated 
by uninhabited open country. The great depth to water in the chalk formation 
makes wells few and costly. (From Amiens sheet of 1:80,000 topographic map of 
France.) Compare with Fig. n. 

artificial structures were much utilized (Fig. 17). Even the 
"trenches" were often mere breastworks of sandbags, and attack- 
ing parties carried with them the quantity of bags necessary to 
consolidate and hold a new position. 



Contaminated Water Supplies 

It might be supposed that with such excesses of water on 
every hand, the fighting forces would at least be spared the 



32 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

trouble of securing proper water supplies. There is, of course, 
no lack of quantity, and it is easily accessible. The sandy lower 
portion of the loam mantle covering the plain is full of water 
which cannot sink deeper because of the impervious clay imme- 
diately beneath. One has only to sink a shallow well some few 
feet through the more clayey upper half of the loam to reach this 
water horizon. Every peasant can afford to have his own well; 
and, since travel over the muddy plain is difficult, he digs his well 
and builds his home conveniently in the midst of his fields. This 
is in striking contrast with the conditions on the chalk plain of 
the Somme battlefield, where all the peasants of a district will 
cluster their homes close about a few deep wells dug at the 
common expense. A map of the Flanders plain (Fig. 11) con- 
trasts strongly with a corresponding map of the chalk region, 
with its compact villages and uninhabited open country (Fig. 12). 
In the defensive systems organized by the opposing armies in 
Flanders there was little to suggest that network of isolated 
fortified towns and villages which figured so largely in the 
Somme campaigns. 

But if water was close at hand it was also easily contaminated. 
Surface wash, carrying with it impurities from every possible 
source of filth, came to rest in the lower part of the loam, where it 
was held by the clay below. The muddy rivers and canals, dis- 
colored and poisoned by refuse from the manufacturing cities 
and towns along their courses, not only were unfit for use them- 
selves but often contaminated the shallow water zone of the 
loam into which the peasants sank their wells. The loam hori- 
zon was, furthermore, too limited to supply the huge quantities 
of water demanded by countless great manufacturing estab- 
lishments. Hence the water-soaked Flanders plain became a 
region of numerous deep and costly artesian wells. 

When vast armies camped upon the plain in 1914 the water 
problem became aggravated, and especially so after drainage 
washed the decaying bodies of the battlefield and passed into the 
water-bearing horizons. Even the deeper waters were often 
poisoned by surface supplies which penetrated down the sand 



CLAY BELT 33 

formations or down the sandy lenses in the clay formation. 
Hence the development of sanitary supplies of water in the 
enormous quantities required by large armies created a difficult 
problem. Nothing less than a full knowledge of the underground 
structure of the battlefield could enable an army to deal success- 
fully with the vital matter of determining which layers in 
the different formations would carry uncontaminated water 
and at what depths they would be encountered in different 
parts of the field. 

Vegetation of the Clay Plain 

Another consequence of the humidity of the clay plain is the 
vigorous growth of vegetation which covers it with a mantle of 
green. There is not now, nor does there ever appear to have 
been, any such vast forest as once covered the rolling chalk plain 
of the Sorame region. In its original state a succession of 
grassy meadows and swamps studded with trees and inter- 
spersed with more continuous woodland patches, the vegetation 
has since been modified by man so that today rectangular patches 
of meadow, field, and garden cover most of the land, the scattered 
trees are less numerous and are largely confined to the borders of 
roads, canals, and rivers, or to the margins of meadows, fields, 
and gardens; while the patches of veritable woodland are much 
more restricted than formerly. Wherever one may be on the 
clay plain, he has the impression of standing in the midst of a 
large and rather intensively cultivated clearing in a forest. When 
he advances to where the forest seemed unbroken, the woodland 
dissolves into scattered groups and rows of trees bordering culti- 
vated areas or transport lines, and the scene is the same as before. 
Distant views are rare, and one has no such sense of the vastness 
of the plain as he gets on the barren but much more uneven up- 
land of Artois. It is only when he mounts to the summit of some 
hill and views the flat country from above (Fig. 13) that he sees 
over and beyond the trees to more distant parts of the plain. 
Hence the incalculable military value of even faint elevations on 
so level a surface. Histories of military campaigns in Flanders 



34 



BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 




/ 

CLAY BELT 35 

contain frequent reference to the difficulty of observing enemy 
movements on account of the trees. 

Aside from the wooded areas on the upper sand formation, 
found capping the scattered hills and ridges left isolated by 
erosion here and there over the plain, the principal forest patches 
are those rooted in the clay formation where it lacks the loam 
covering. These surface exposures of the clay are called clyttes, 
and, as they furnish a cold, wet, sticky, inhospitable soil, poorly 
adapted to cultivation, the peasants often leave them covered 
with trees. The Houthulst Forest north of Ypres is a good 
example of a type of woodland in which forest fighting is at its 
worst, because to the other difficulties usually presented by a 
fortified wood are added the horrors of a water-soaked, tenacious 
soil giving a morass in which troops cannot entrench. 

Hills on the Clay Plain 

The hills of the clay plain are perhaps its most important 
topographic feature from the military point of view. A general 
can well afford to sacrifice thousands of men in order to conquer 
and hold a small hummock a hundred feet or less in height; for 
an observer on that hill can save tens of thousands of his comrades 
by directing artillery fire against enemy positions, batteries, 
troop concentrations, railways, and roads, and other objectives 
easily located from his point of vantage but absolutely hidden 
behind a wall of trees to one who stands on the plain itself. 

An insignificant mound rising only 30 feet above the plain 
and called "the Bluff" was the scene of terrific fighting in the early 
part of 1916 because its value for artillery observation made it 
the key to a section of the British line. To secure control of this 
one point the enemy excavated tunnels and exploded five mines 
under it and then launched a successful infantry attack. From 
the captured elevation the Germans could enfilade other British 
positions, and two weeks of British counterattacks failed to 
regain the lost mound. So valuable was the tiny hillock that 
the British now made more elaborate preparations for its recap- 
ture. A frontal attack was necessary, since one side of the hill 



36 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

was protected by a canal barrier, the other by a marsh. The 
story of the struggle, of the final successful British assault, and 
of the later unsuccessful German counterattacks is clearly pic- 
tured by Conan Doyle in the third volume of his detailed account 
of "The British Campaign in France and Flanders," while Sir 
Douglas Haig states that between January 16, 1916, and June 7, 
191 7, a total of twenty-seven mines were exploded at this point 
alone. Anyone who doubts the significance of a 30-foot hill on a 
flat plain should read the pages of unofficial and official reports on 
these operations and try to measure the labor expended and the 
blood spilt in contests for possession of the Bluff. 

A still more sanguinary conflict raged for six long weeks in the 
spring of 1916 for possession of "the Mound" near St. Eloi, a 
small bump of clay about 25 feet high. The British positions on 
the Mound were violently attacked in the middle of March, fol- 
lowing a heavy bombardment and the explosion of a mine under 
the hillock. The attack was successful, and the defenders had to 
evacuate a considerable stretch of their line, dominated as it was 
by the Mound. In unsuccessful counterattacks the British, 
swept by a hail of projectiles from the higher point, in a short 
time lost over 900 men, including 40 officers. Thereupon they 
excavated five mines under the Mound, placing as much as 30,000 
pounds of ammonal in a single one. These were exploded the last 
of March, and a furious combat lasting several days resulted in a 
British victory. Then began a series of German counterattacks 
continuing for some weeks, in the course of which the mine cra- 
ters, filled with pools of blood and mud in which the men fought 
waist deep with rifle and machine guns clogged with dirt, changed 
hands repeatedly. Not until the end of April was the position 
again definitely in British possession. 

To gain Hill 60, a low ridge fifty feet high in the Zillebeek re- 
gion from which the Germans dominated a broad stretch of the 
plain in front while their own back areas were concealed, the 
British on April 17 discharged six subterranean mines and began 
a contest which raged with fury for weeks. Within four days 
the British casualties rose to more than 3,000 men and 100 



CLAY BELT 37 

officers on a front hardly longer than two or three city blocks, 
and the blood-drenched hillock had changed hands several times. 
Still the battle raged. The Germans delivered their first bom- 
bardment with poison gas shells, and in the first days of May 
discharged several poison gas waves which alone cost the British 
another thousand men and drove them from the position. In the 
fight for Mt. Sorel and Observatory Hill in June of the same year 
the Canadians sacrificed 7,000 men. 9 

The Ypres Bastion 

If an insignificant hill may be of such vital importance, who 
shall set a value on such heights as the east-west ridge from 
Mont Kemmel to Mont Cassel, rising several hundred feet above 
the plain? Dominating the lowland from a central point, these 
"Monts de Flandre," as they are called, should form the key 
position of Flanders. It is perhaps not too much to accord them 
the dignity of such a title. In Roman times Mont Cassel was 
crowned with fortifications, from which radiated a system of 
Roman roads to bind the surrounding plain to the central strong- 
hold. The eleventh, fourteenth, and seventeenth centuries saw 
fierce battles rage about it. When Philip of Valois overthrew 
the Flemish rebels holding Mont Cassel in 1328, all Flanders 
submitted. While the French held southern Flanders against 
the combined forces of the Allies in the wars of the French 
Revolution, they made of Mont Cassel an entrenched camp, 
from which military operations were carried out in all directions. 
So throughout history one might trace the important r61e 
played by this ridge of hills and particularly by its culminating 
point, Mont Cassel, which was in 19 14 to serve as the observa- 
tory from which Foch would direct the first battles of Flanders 
and from which he could, in fact, on a clear day see the flashes 
of the guns from the dunes at Nieuport to the chalk upland at 
Vimy Ridge. 

But the real strength of the hill position is only apparent when 
taken in connection with that remnant of the backslope of the 

'A.ConanDoyle: TheBritishCampaigninFranceandFlanders:i9l6,London,i9i7. 



38 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

former cuesta, or asymmetrical upland, which trends northward 
from near Mont Kenimel to the vicinity of Passchendaele (Fig. 2). 
This Messines-Passchendaele ridge is lower than the Mont 
Cassel-Mont Kemmel remnant of the southern crest of the cuesta, 
and, being part of the gentle back slope of the former upland, it 
gets progressively lower toward the north, where it is in a sense 
continued by fragments of the second cuesta near Staden so 
as to give a line of heights bending northwest nearly to Dix- 
mude. In front of this northern sector, and strengthening 
it, lies the marshy Handzaeme lowland, a natural moat be- 
fore the upland barrier. The Messines-Passchendaele crest 
is broader than the higher ridge, affording space for large 
bodies of troops; and it commands a wide stretch of the fiat plain 
to the east and west. Especially toward the east, the direction 
of chief danger, the crest dominates the vast plain like a watch- 
tower on a castle wall. In the angle between the east-west and 
north-south ridges lay Ypres, defended by these higher lands on 
the east and south, and on the west by several parallel branches 
of the Yser River and the Yser Canal. About Ypres there is, 
furthermore, a girdle of forested areas, partly on the arenaceous 
soils of the upper sand formation capping the higher portions 
of the ridges, partly on the compact clay exposures, or clyttes, 
which here protrude through the loam mantle in unusual num- 
bers and which, we have seen, are so inhospitable to agriculture 
that they remain wooded. Altogether the Ypres region is a mili- 
tary stronghold of the highest importance, and this importance 
is fully attested by the number of pages in history which record 
bloody struggles for its defense or conquest. Siege and assault 
have followed each other in a long succession of which the great 
Battles of Ypres of the World War were merely the most recent 
chapters. 

The Mont Cassel-Mont Kemmel ridge and the Messines- 
Passchendaele ridge meet in an apex near Mont Kemmel, form- 
ing a "bastion" pointing southeast, the flanks of which present a 
most formidable natural obstacle to an enemy advancing from 
either the south or the east. Neither to the north nor to the 



CLAY BELT 



39 



south of it could hostile troops press very far westward without 
incurring heavy risks, so long as the obstacle remained unshaken 
to threaten their flank and rear. On the south especially would a 




Fig. 14 — Block diagram of the Flanders and Somme battlefields, showing 
salient features of the topography. 

westward advance of necessity be limited, for the Vimy Ridge 
side of the Arras bastion (p. 189) and the Mont Cassel-Mont 
Kemmel wall of the Ypres bastion formed the two jaws of a 
giant trap which might at any time prove fatal to an army 



4 o BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

pushing too far over the plain between them (Figs. 14 and 36). The 
Mont Kemmel-Mont Cassel ridge is continued westward by the 
hills east and west of Watten until it meets the northwestern 
prolongation of Vimy Ridge west of St. Omer. Between the two 
bastions there is thus a triangular re-entrant, or "curtain," of 
low plain hemmed in by higher land. Into this curtain an enemy 
could safely venture only if both bastions were conquered and 
danger from the higher land removed. We shall not be surprised, 
therefore, to find much of the fighting in the Flanders plain 
centering on the attempted destruction of the Ypres bastion, 
"the key of Flanders," nor to find the Germans, after pushing a 
salient across the plain between the Ypres and Arras bastions, 
voluntarily withdrawing from the dangerous position when 
repeated attempts to destroy the two jaws of the trap had failed. 
The hills are apt to be drier than the adjacent portions of the 
plain, either because they are capped by the upper sand forma- 
tion or because they rise higher above the permanent ground- 
water level and shed rainfall more readily from their sloping sides. 
Holders of the hills thus possess more comfortable positions, as 
well as better observation. But they are exposed to a new 
danger, for in the better drained ground subterranean mine war- 
fare can be prosecuted on a scale impossible in the water-soaked 
lowland. It is true that tunneling operations must encounter 
dangers from underground water in the hills, but where layers of 
sand alternate with layers of clay, engineers guided by geological 
advice may escape much of the trouble suffered by those who 
remain ignorant of the detailed structure of the terrain. Even in 
rainy Flanders there is a "dry" season, which causes the ground- 
water level to sink lower than usual; but, owing to a lag in its 
movement, it continues to sink for some time after the wet season 
has begun, and the rise does not cease until after the beginning of 
the dry season. Failure of the Germans to realize this fact re- 
sulted in the drowning of some of their tunnels driven just above 
the water level as determined when the heavier rains ceased. The 
chief geologist of the British forces, familiar with the subterranean 
movements of the water table, saved his army all trouble from 



NORTHERN SAND BELT 41 

this source. The high importance of mining operations in Flan- 
ders, and the necessity of a knowledge of underground structure 
in directing them, were fully demonstrated in the Battle of 
Messines Ridge, which began with the greatest mining operations 
in the history of warfare. 

THE NORTHERN SAND BELT 

It is only by way of contrast with the clay belt that the north- 
ern zone may be called sandy. The land is so low and flat that 
water stands always on or near the surface just as in the clay 
country. The sands themselves are usually argillaceous, and 
layers of true clay alternate with them. So also the loam cover- 
ing contains a large clay content, even though more sandy than 
farther south. Hence the water-soaked soil is muddy, its humid- 
ity favors a vigorous growth of vegetation, and one who passes 
from the clay belt to the sand belt is not impressed with any sud- 
den or marked change in the character of the country. Seldom is 
there even a trace of that appearance of aridity which one usually 
associates with a sandy region. 

We have already seen (p. 12) that forested areas are more 
numerous in the sand belts and that there are remnants of two 
faint cuestas (three if we count a very short intervening one) 
indicated by the steeper southern and more gentle northern 
slopes of two slightly elevated zones. In a belt where the "ele- 
vations" are matters of a few feet only and where the "steeper 
slopes" are scarcely noticeable as such, the topography would be 
called "flat" by any one who did not give it a very careful exami- 
nation. Nothing but the fact that on a flat battlefield elevations 
of half a dozen feet may be significant makes it worth while to 
emphasize such faint topographic elements. 

It is in the northern sand belt that contamination of deeper 
waters is most likely to occur. This is due to the fact that the 
clay layers interspersed with the sands are not continuous over 
broad areas. Impure waters carried downward through the sand 
to the first clay bed move along its surface until its margin is 
reached, then descend to the next layer, and so on. The fact 



42 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

that a well is deep is therefore no guarantee that its water is fit 
for use. "At Bruges wells 40 meters deep are as dangerous as 
those which barely penetrate below the surface." 10 

In general, however, there is little in the northern sand belt 
to differentiate it from that part of the Flanders battlefield just 
to the south. Certainly the points of resemblance are far more 
striking than the differences. It is therefore unnecessary to re- 
peat the previous descriptions of features which find their typical 
expression in the clay plain and which are only modified in a 
moderate degree in the northern sand belt. 

THE MARITIME BELT 

Low, flat, and wet as is the rest of Flanders, the maritime belt is 
lower, flatter, and wetter. Only an occasional area rises above 
the level of high tide, and vast stretches lie well below tide level. 
The dunes and the dikes alone prevent the belt from being 
almost completely submerged when the tide is high, at which 
times some areas would have 10 feet of water over them. The 
flat plain of the clay belt is undulating, almost hilly, when 
compared with the remarkable flatness of the low land bordering 
the sea. Trees are rare, houses few, and villages still less numer- 
ous; hence wide vistas open to the view. Yet the eye sweeps 
the broad expanse of fields and pastures in vain for an elevation 
sufficiently high to be detected by the unaided vision. Only 
careful measurement would reveal the fact that occasionally the 
surface swells gently a very few feet above the average level. 
Here one has an impression of vastness which is lacking in the 
tree-studded plain of the interior. 

On so low and so level a surface the problem of excess humidity 
is necessarily present in its most difficult form. With the whole 
belt menaced by invasion from the sea on one side, by flooding 
from the rivers which flow into the lowland on the other side, by 
deluges of rain from a leaden sky above, and by eruption of brack- 
ish water from the earth beneath; and with no chance for all 
these waters to escape with the aid of man's labor, it must be evi- 

10 Blanchard, La Flandre. p. 56. 



MARITIME BELT 43 

dent that only a severe and never-ending struggle can keep the 
land fit for human habitation. The line of dunes must be 
guarded and strengthened, and breaches in them blocked by arti- 
ficial dikes. When during the great siege of Ostend in 1601 the 
Dutch removed the dunes northeast of the town in order to pre- 
vent the Spaniards from attacking it on that side, the sea poured 




Fig. is — Drainage ditches and canals in the maritime belt of the 
Flanders battlefield. 



through the gap and flooded many square miles of the maritime 
plain. During the War of the Spanish Succession, when the 
French under Marshal Saxe were besieging the English base at 
Ostend, the commander-in-chief of the British forces in vain 
urged his Dutch and Austrian allies to open the dikes and flood 
the country as a measure of defense. In this case failure to profit 
by the natural topographic advantages of the region led to the fall 
of Ostend. In 1793 the French under Souham, besieged in Dun- 
kirk by the Allied armies, opened the sluices and deluged all the 



44 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

former marsh region east of the fortress, thereby contributing 
largely to the ultimate success of the defense. These are but 
isolated instances of the many occasions on which inundation 
of the low plain has been resorted to as a means of defense 
in war. 

The river waters must not be permitted to enter the plain but 
must be carried across it between dikes raised high enough to 
confine the waters until they reach the sea. Here gates must 
be installed and faithful watchmen see that they are closed at 
high tide to keep the sea from flowing into the land but opened 
at low tide to permit the accumulated river waters to escape. 
If the gates are kept closed, or are opened at high tide, the land 
may be flooded, especially if sluice gates in the river dikes are also 
opened. On the other hand, evacuation of the canals may be 
resorted to in order to deprive an enemy of transport at a critical 
moment. This was demonstrated during the siege of Dunkirk 
in 1793, when the defeated Allies on retiring had to abandon their 
thirty-two heavy guns to the French because the latter, "having 
control of the sluices, had shut off the water from the canal, so 
that it was no longer of use for transport." 11 

Disposal of rain falling directly on the flat surface is a heavy 
task. It cannot sink into the water-soaked ground; evaporation 
is slight in the humid region; and the neighboring rivers are at 
higher levels. An intricate network of drainage ditches must 
be dug to lead the water to collecting points, whence it may be 
raised by windmills or steam pumps to the diked rivers. In the 
lowest part of the plain the complex of ditches and canals (Fig. 
15) is particularly striking. Even detailed maps show but a 
fraction of the total number of ditches, for they are sometimes 
spaced only 30 or 40 yards apart. They break the country up 
into tiny morsels of ground bounded by water and oppose to an 
army a formidable obstacle. The uselessness of cavalry on such a 
terrain has often been commented upon in past campaigns; the 
artillery finds itself embarrassed at every turn; while that heavy 
modern arm of the service, the tanks, can scarcely negotiate the 

11 Fortescue, Vol. 4, Part I, p. 132. 






MARITIME BELT 



45 





Fig. 16 — Passerelle across the flood waters at the border of the submerged 
zone along the Yser. Many of the advanced positions could be reached only by 
means of these narrow footbridges. (Belgian official photograph.) 

Fig. 17 — Sandbag shelters and defenses commanding the flooded valley of the 
Yser. Note the wooden footpath over the muddy surface and the fact that the 
water-soaked soil compels resort to exposed sandbag shelters in place of concealed 
underground dugouts. (Belgian official photograph.) 



4 6 



BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 



larger channels. Even infantry finds such terrain difficult to 
cross, as will readily appear from perusing accounts of the sieges 
of Dunkirk. This position is protected on the east by a former 
marsh, the Moeres, or Great Moor, occupying the lowest part of 
the maritime plain, which was drained by a system of rectangular 
ditches in 1624, but partially flooded during the sieges. 




Fig. 18 — The water-soaked plain of Flanders between Ypres and Dixmude, show- 
ing the morass of mud, shell craters, and fallen tree branches produced by artillery 
fire on a tree-covered part of the low surface. (Belgian official photograph.) 



One naturally expects in so low and humid a region to find un- 
sanitary conditions and sickness among the difficulties to be 
combated by large military forces. Such great marshes as the 
Moeres near Dunkirk did indeed curse all the surrounding plain 
with malarial fevers, and even today the evil is not completely 
eliminated. The clairs, or openings, left by the extraction of 
great quantities of peat when that labor was the chief industry of 
the plain, contain large bodies of stagnant water, and not all the 
marshes have been drained. The water near the surface is con- 
taminated with all sorts of impurities; that deeper down is 
brackish. "All the wells are bad, or ought to be so considered." 12 

12 Blanchard, La Flandre, p. 292. 



MARITIME BELT 47 

The brackish waters, which penetrate through the sands below 
the maritime plain under pressure from the higher sea, not 
only destroy the value of wells but may even push to the sur- 
face, especially near the dunes, and kill trees and gardens. Dur- 
ing the sieges of Dunkirk the Allied armies found the region 
"wholly destitute of drinking water, that in the canals being 
brackish, and that found in the wells unpalatable;" and in 1793 
it was the combination of "incessant fighting, a swampy en- 
campment, bad drinking water, and fever" which brought the 
besieging armies to the verge of disaster. 13 

That man should have so long maintained the struggle against 
his liquid foes is due in part to the fertility of the loam which 
covers the maritime plain. The low-lying reclaimed polders have 
the richest soil in all Flanders, and despite its clayey consistency 
it rewarded the toiler with abundant harvests. Its natural rich- 
ness is soon reduced, but wise methods of agriculture have main- 
tained the productiveness of the plain. Fields and pastures 
together are able to support a population which, if not so dense, 
is more prosperous than that of neighboring belts. The scarcity 
of trees is explained not through any defect of the soil ; nor, as in 
the case of the Somme plain, by the fact that the fertility of the 
soil caused all the land to be cleared and cultivated. It seems due 
rather to the greater exposure of the plain to the winds, which, 
sweeping in from the open ocean, bend and deform such trees as 
persist in growing on the level expanse. 

As in the rest of Flanders, so in the maritime plain the clay is a 
most important element to be reckoned with. The layer of peat 
which underlies almost the entire region, but shows at the surface 
over limited areas, is usually covered with the argillaceous loam. 
Here also, therefore, a dense, sticky, slippery mud is charac- 
teristic of the water-soaked land and opposes to military opera- 
tions all those embarrassments described on previous pages. 
The awful mud of the Yser is the strongest memory which 
one carries away from that part of the battle front. Even the 
passer elles above the flood waters (Fig. 16) were coated with the 

ls Fortescue, Vol. 4, Part I, pp. 124, 132. 



48 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

slimy deposit tracked there by countless feet, and one slipped and 
slid, continually in imminent peril of gliding into the waters. Un- 
drained marshes still exist, and mud, water, and marsh, especially 
when torn into a frightful morass by shell fire, produced a surface 
horrible to contemplate (Fig. 18). 

Deep trenches and dugouts were of necessity little known on 
the lower parts of this front. Those which existed were often 
filled with water and liquid mud, and life in them was a night- 
mare. Breastworks and shelters of sandbags were brought into 
use (Fig. 17), and every faint knoll rising above the general level 
became a fortified island in the sea of mud. Railway embank- 
ments and dikes were much-prized strips of higher and drier land, 
often used as principal lines of defense (Fig. 17). But it was the 
flood waters, released from canals and diked rivers and permitted 
to flow in from the ocean, which formed the ultimate line of 
resistance to an enemy attack. It is true that even an empty 
canal, with slimy sides and mire in its bottom, was no easy 
obstacle to cross (Fig. 19.) Yet this was as nothing compared 
with the vast stretch of waters which filled the so-called valley 
of the Yser when the gates at Nieuport were opened and the 
whole country from the coast to Dixmude, formerly an estuary of 
the sea, reverted to its original state. The line of the Yser, 
repeatedly utilized as a defensive barrier in the wars of the past 
in Flanders, was to play a grand role in the World War. 

THE DUNE BELT 

Between the low maritime plain and the sea stretches the 
great barrier of sand, from one to several miles broad, capped by 
dunes which keep out the ocean waters. The dunes are from 30 
to 100 feet high and, while sheltering more trees than the level 
plain, show large spaces of barren white or yellowish sand, con- 
spicuous even at great distances (Fig. 20). The sandy soil is 
much drier than that found on the plain; but the water lies close 
below the surface, as the Duke of York discovered when he found 
it impossible, during his siege of Dunkirk, to protect his flanks 
by trenches because they encountered water at a depth of two 



DUNE BELT 



49 



feet. 14 In form the individual dunes are extremely irregular 
but often arranged in two or more bands parallel to the sea and 
enclosing broad depressions or basins called pannes, occasionally 
containing ponds of fresh water. The higher parts of the dunes 
permit the digging of dry trenches, which must, however, be 
specially walled to prevent the slumping of the loose sand (Fig. 




Fig. 19 — Defensive position sited along a canal draining the low Flanders plain. 
Even when the water in the canal is low, its muddy bottom and marshy borders 
make it a moat of some tactical value. (Belgian official photograph.) 



21). Shells bursting in dune sands do less damage than in almost 
any other type of terrain. 

Because the dunes are higher and less humid than the plain, 
they contain an unusually dense population. They are out of the 
reach of floods and at all seasons of the year serve as a highway for 
traffic along the coast in preference to the low and muddy plain. 
Both the flat strand of the beach between the dunes and the sea, 
and the depressions between the principal dune ridges, parallel 

14 Fortescue, Vol. 4, Part I, p. 128. 



50 



BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 



to the sea, have been used as routes of travel and for the advance 
of armies. The dunes contain the least objectionable waters for 
drinking purposes, as the rain falling on them and sinking into the 
loose sand forms a water table highest in the center and declining 
toward the sea on the outside and toward the polders on the inside. 
Wells a few feet deep get a limited supply fit for household uses. 




Fig. 20 — Barbed wire defenses to prevent an enemy advance along the dry high- 
way formed by the strip of dunes along the coast. Because of the water-soaked 
character of the maritime plain, the dunes have always been a favorite route for 
advancing armies. (Belgian official photograph.) 



Higher, drier, better provided with drinking water, and afford- 
ing some shelter from an enemy, the dunes are far better adapted 
to military operations than is the adjacent plain with its ditches 
and canals, its water and its mud. Before the modern day of 
military operations on a grand scale one could truly say: "When 
an army ventures into the maritime plain, it is not on the vast 
open fields that it delivers battle; it is upon the sands that it 
encounters the adversary. The rare combats which have taken 
place in the plain have had for their theater the sands : the Battle 



DUNE BELT 51 

of the Dunes of Dunkirk, the Battle of the Dunes of Nieuport. It 
is by the dunes that the Duke of Guise lays hand upon Calais; by 
the dunes that Conde, Turenne take Dunkirk, that the Duke of 
York approaches it in 1793, that the Archduke Albert persists 
in the attack on Ostend." 15 In the great Battle of the Dunes of 
Dunkirk, in 1658, the Spanish took up a strong position in the sand 




Fig. 21 — Extension of the defense lines from the coastal dunes across the sandy 
beach into the sea, to block the natural pathway formed by the strand. Like the 
strip of dunes, the strand has in successive wars served as an easy line of advance 
for hostile troops. (Belgian official photograph.) 



hills, with their right flank protected by the sea, their left by a 
canal in the plain, and the key to their position held by four 
regiments on a particularly high mass of dunes. So formidable 
was the position and so well protected its flanks that the com- 
mander of the English troops for a time despaired of forcing it. 
Success was achieved only when the dominating point on the 
highest dune was stormed at a heavy sacrifice. 

The line of the dunes is occasionally broken through by rivers 

15 Blanchard, La Flandre, p. 226. 



52 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

or canals, the mouths of which have been transformed into har- 
bors with the aid of artificial locks, basins, and other engineering 
works. Such are the harbors of Calais, Dunkirk, Nieuport, 
Ostend, and Zeebrugge. All are exposed to the danger of silting 
up; but the outwash from rivers and canals, sometimes aided by 
tidewater accumulated in special basins for the purpose, usually 
serves to keep them open. Any obstacle placed in the entrance by 
checking the outflowing currents will speedily cause the blocking 
of the port, a fact of which the British took advantage in their 
brilliant exploit in closing the German submarine base at Zee- 
brugge. In front of the harbors the bottom of the sea is ridged 
with submarine banks of sand parallel to the shore which break 
the force of storm waves, while between the banks and the coast 
are channels, often 30 feet or more deep, where vessels may lie in 
comparative security until a favorable moment for entering port. 
Opposite Nieuport these banks reach their maximum development 
and so afford protection to naval craft which might desire to 
protect the flank of an army standing behind the line of the Yser 
from possible attack by enemy forces advancing along the dunes. 

We have now sketched in outline the salient features of each 
topographic belt in the Flanders battlefield. In all of them we 
have discovered that the points of resemblance are more striking 
than the points of difference. There is thus a real geographic 
unity in the Flanders plain, which the several phases of its 
topography do not materially affect. Everywhere the plain is 
low, everywhere it is comparatively flat, everywhere except on the 
limited hill and dune areas it is a sea of sticky mud in wet weather. 
In all parts are found sluggish rivers and canals which may be 
used in time of war as defense lines by opening the sluice gates 
and inundating the broad, shallow valleys. Few parts do not 
have the terrain cut up by countless ditches filled with water and 
the ground permanently saturated below a very shallow depth. 
Everywhere the water-supply problem is a serious one in spite of 
the extreme humidity of the country. The Battlefield of Flanders 
has its own consistent and striking character and is like no other 
battlefield of the World War. 



CHAPTER II 

MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE BATTLEFIELD 
OF FLANDERS 

About the middle of October, 1914, the Allied forces, following 
the Battle of the Marne and the check at the Aisne, were pro- 
longing their great flanking maneuver, sometimes called "the 
race for the sea," northward from the Somme region into the low 
country south of Ypres. At the same time the Belgian army, 
retreating from Antwerp, was falling back toward the line of the 
Yser. Thus from opposite directions were in progress the move- 
ments which would soon crystallize the battle front across the 
Flanders plain. 

On October 11 British cavalry entered the southern edge of 
the Battlefield of Flanders, crossing the southern sand belt and 
driving the enemy cavalry from the Forest of Nieppe south of 
Hazebrouck, one of the woodland areas characteristic of the 
southern margin of the clay belt and the sand belt. Pushing on 
across the plain to the Mont Cassel-Mont Kemmel ridge, it drove 
an outpost of the German army from the Mont des Cats (Fig. 4) 
after a stiff fight and captured the high ground farther east. Thus 
was the securing of the Ypres bastion one of the first objective of 
Allied strategy in this field. With a view to a further advance 
eastward Sir John French "ordered General Allenby, on the 15th, 
to reconnoitre the line of the River Lys, and endeavour to secure 
the passages on the opposite bank." But the barrier was so 
strongly held by the Germans to the northeast of a point near 
Armentieres that "the Cavalry corps was unable to secure pas- 
sages or to establish a permanent footing on the eastern bank of 
the river." 1 

The infantry and artillery on entering the plain swung east- 
ward to support the left wing of the French, which was already 

x Sir John French: Despatches: Mons; The Marne; The Aisne; Flanders, London, 
1914, pp. 119, 128. 



54 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

engaged with the Germans southwest of Lille. Immediately Sir 
John French found himself embarrassed by the nature of the 
terrain, and in his despatch covering the campaign he early 
notes that "the ground throughout this country is remarkably 
fiat, rendering effective artillery support very difficult." 2 Mean- 
while both British and French made fruitless attempts to dis- 
lodge the Germans from their strong position at La Bassee, where 
they had fortified themselves on a slightly higher bit of dry land 
surrounded by low, flat, marshy ground partly underlain by peat 
bog. "This position of La Bassee has throughout the battle 
defied all attempts at capture either by the French or the Brit- 
ish," reports the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces. 
Elsewhere the Allies pushed on, much handicapped by the 
ditches and dikes and unable to reach Lille. 

Meanwhile General Rawlinson's forces, which had been aiding 
the Belgians in their retreat from Antwerp, fell back to the Ypres 
bastion, taking up a position on the Messines-Passchendaele 
ridge and facing east in the neighborhood of Gheluvelt, while 
French reserves were massed inside the bastion, in and west of 
the town of Ypres. Still anxious to obtain a footing on the east 
bank of the Lys the Commander-in-Chief directed that Rawlin- 
son's forces should advance eastward from the ridge to the river 
at Menin and force a passage over the barrier there. But Raw- 
linson feared to abandon his advantageous position on the ridge, 
in view of the fact that overwhelming enemy forces were threaten- 
ing him from the east and northeast. He accordingly made 
representations to this effect and after a short advance returned 
to his lines on the eastern side of the Ypres bastion, while French 
cavalry on his left drove back advanced parties of the enemy 
beyond the Forest of Houthulst in order to secure the north- 
western continuation of the ridge toward Dixmude. They were 
soon pressed back from these northern hills to the line of the Yser 
River, but most of the Ypres bastion was still in Allied hands, 
while the enemy held the important line of the Lys just to the 
southeast, along which he was assembling very heavy forces. 

2 Sir John French, Despatches, p. 121. 



BATTLE OF THE YSER 55 

During these movements in the south and center of the Flan- 
ders plain, the Belgian army, supported by French forces, was 
falling back from Antwerp. King Albert, "judging that no other 
line offered as great advantages, decided to establish the army 
on the Yser and to place this line in a state of defense." 3 On 
October 15 the Belgians and French took up the new position 
along the west bank of the Yser from Zuydschoote, five miles 
north of Ypres, past Dixmude to the sea at Nieuport, leaving out- 
posts on the eastern bank. The Allied front was now based on 
the river-canal barrier from the sea to a point south of Dixmude, 
thence on the ridge positions from near Passchendaele southward 
beyond Gheluvelt, whence it cut across the plain to follow south- 
west up the western side of the Lys nearly to Armentieres. From 
here it ran across the plain past La Bassee to the edge of the chalk 
upland of Artois. In the north this position was a strong one, 
but it was held by wholly inadequate forces in the face of an en- 
emy already greatly superior in numbers and constantly growing 
stronger. 

The Battle of the Yser 

The moment had now arrived when the German armies, con- 
fronted by a continuous line of enemies from Switzerland to the 
sea, must give up any hope of outmaneuvering the Allied line 
by a turning movement around its left end and launch a direct 
attack against some part of the front. The sector selected was the 
plain of Flanders, and the two immediate objectives were to force 
the Yser barrier and smash the Ypres bastion. If these two for- 
midable natural obstacles could be conquered, the Channel ports 
might be seized, direct communication between England and the 
Continent endangered, and the left wing of the Allies rolled up or 
forced to fall back on the Artois upland. In the latter case the 
Allied line would form a dangerous strategic salient with its apex 
near Arras, which, broken at any point by a German offensive, 
would compel an Allied withdrawal to the line of the Somme. 

3 Military Operations of Belgium in Defence of the Country and To Uphold Her 
Neutrality: Report Compiled by the Commander-in-Chief of the Belgian Army for 
the Period July 31st to December 31st, 1914, London, 1915, p. 65. 



56 



BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 



Thus the German line would be greatly shortened and the fertile 
fields of Picardy added to the German holdings. The way for an 
advance on Paris would once more lie open. 

The first attack was directed against the line of the Yser from 
Dixmude to the sea at Nieuport, and both Belgians and French 




Fig. 22 — The Yser barrier, showing the three main lines of 
resistance: the Yser River, the Noord Vaart-Groote Bever- 
dyk stream, and the Dixmude-Nieuport railway embank- 
ment. All the area from the railway embankment to a line 
east of the Yser River was ultimately flooded. 



«quickly concentrated the bulk of their available forces behind 
this part of the barrier to meet the shock. A report by the Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Belgian army on the "Military Operations 
of Belgium" describes the Yser line as "an excellent defensive 
position" and "tactically a strong one." The left flank rested on 
the sea, which was in friendly hands and where the submerged 
banks off Nieuport offered fair shelter to a fleet engaged in sup- 
porting land operations by its fire. The river itself was about 65 



BATTLE OF THE YSER 57 

feet wide, diked on both sides, and passable only by bridge or 
boat. Fortunately the western bank commanded the eastern one, 
being about 6 feet higher. Roughly parallel to the river and just 
west of it runs another stream about 30 feet wide, called the 
Groote Beverdyk in its upper portion, the Noord Vaart farther 
down near where it joins the Yser at Nieuport (Fig. 22). This 
stream forms a good second line of resistance. Just west of it 
is a third line, the embankment of the Dixmude-Nieuport rail- 
way, raised from 3 to 6 feet above the wet plain. All this 
region, a gulf only a few centuries ago as we have already 
seen, was low, marshy, and muddy, intersected with a network 
of ditches filled with water, largely devoid of cover for attacking 
forces, and subject to inundation at any time (Fig. 15). The 
principal point of weakness in the line was the large meander of 
the river near Tervaete, half way between Dixmude and the sea, 
called "the Tervaete bend." As this meander is convex toward 
the north, an enemy on the northern side can concentrate fire 
from three directions upon the defenders within, render it unten- 
able, and then effect a crossing. 4 

At its two ends the line was buttressed by strong positions. 
Nieuport is a center upon which six canals or streams converge, 
all of them passing east or north of the town, while the dunes offer 
cover for troops holding a bridgehead north of the watercourses. 
This bridgehead was of vital importance, for at Nieuport were 
located the gates which would admit the sea to inundate the Yser 
valley, should this become necessary as a means of defense. The 
security of this important buttress was further guaranteed by 
Allied control of the sea. Dixmude, at the other end of the line, 
was defended by strong positions in its suburbs, protected by 
the partly submerged marshy bottom of the Handzaeme low- 
land on the east, by the Handzaeme canal, and by a railway 
embankment on the east and south. Altogether the line was one 
of formidable strength. 

Never before had an enemy attempted an invasion by this 
route. Ludendorff chides the Allied commanders for their 

4 Military Operations of Belgium, p. 72. 



58 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

stupidity in seeking to attain great strategic ends which tactical 
conditions rendered impossible of achievement. The best 
example which the war affords of such unwisdom is the attempt 
of the German high command to gain the grandiose strategic ends 
outlined above by an assault on the impregnable natural barrier 
of the Yser. Such a blunder can be excused, if at all, only on the 
ground that the German leaders believed their overwhelming 
numerical superiority was more than a match for any natural 
obstacle, however strong, when defended by nothing more than a 
wretched remnant of the little Belgian army and a few French 
forces hastily rushed to their assistance. 

On October 16 the Battle of the Yser began with a recon- 
naisance in force against Dixmude. By the 18th Nieuport and 
parts of the river front between the two buttresses were feeling 
the enemy pressure; a British flotilla, supported by French ships, 
was shelling the Germans attacking along the historic highway, 
and "dryway," of the dunes; and the battle was becoming general. 
One determined assault after another, launched against the 
Nieuport bridgehead, was beaten off with heavy losses to the 
enemy. Violent attacks against the Dixmude bridgehead, some 
of them delivered in the darkness of night, nearly achieved suc- 
cess at one moment, but the lost positions were recovered. A 
furious bombardment deluged the whole front and the Belgian 
back areas with shells, while heavy assaults on the Tervaete 
bend, fully recognized by the Germans as the weakest point along 
the barrier, menaced the Belgian center. By October 21 seven 
German divisions were flinging their whole weight furiously 
against the line of the Yser. That night, under cover of dark- 
ness, a crossing was effected on a temporary bridge at the danger- 
ous Tervaete bend, and, despite the efforts of the Belgians to 
execute the order to hold the chord drawn across the base of 
the meander "at all costs by clinging to every inch of the ground," 
the condition was so grave there on October 23 that the Belgian 
command appealed to the French for support, at the same time 
again ordering the Belgian center "to hold out to the last extrem- 
ity." Fortunately, every attempt made by the Germans to cross 



BATTLE OF THE YSER 59 

the barrier elsewhere had proved a costly failure. On the other 
hand, an Allied offensive by troops debouching from behind the 
barrier had to be abandoned in order to help the imperiled Bel- 
gian center. 

The German commanders now concentrated all their efforts 
against the weak center at Tervaete bend and drove the defenders 
from their position along the chord. The latter thereupon fell 
back behind the line of the Groote Beverdyk. This exposed the 
right flank of those defending the river farther west, and they 
fell back behind the lower course of the same stream, where it is 
called the Noord Vaart (Fig. 22). Only the Dixmude end of the 
main river position still held, and the enemy now made a supreme 
effort to capture that part of the line. Fifteen assaults in close 
succession were hurled back by the gallant Belgians and the 
heroic French marine fusiliers, and still the enemy returned to 
the onslaught with dogged perseverance. 5 

The defenders, hopelessly outnumbered and reduced to a state 
of extreme exhaustion, lacking reserves, and faced with a shortage 
of munitions, now required all the aid that the natural advan- 
tages of their position could give them. "The key of the position 
was not at Dixmude, nor at Pervyse, nor at Ramscappelle, nor at 
Ypres; but in the pocket of the chief hydrographic officer who 
guarded the locks at Nieuport." 6 

A council of war on October 25 decided to flood all the Yser 
region east of the railway embankment forming the third line 
of resistance. Accordingly all aqueducts through the embank- 
ment were sealed up, and the sluices at Nieuport were opened 
when the tide was high in order to let in the sea, and closed when 
the tide was low to prevent the accumulating river, rain, and 
marine waters from escaping. It was none too early, for on the 
26th the Germans in irresistible numbers drove the Allies from 
behind the Beverdyk, compelling them to seek protection behind 
the railway embankment. But the terrible strain of continual 
assaults through mire and water, over rivers, canals, and ditches, 

5 Military Operations of Belgium, p. 81. 

6 Charles Le Gome: Dixmude, Rev. des Deux Monies, Vol. 26, 1915, pp. 169- 
194, 370-403; reference on p. 390. 



60 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

was beginning to tell on the invaders. As they paused for 
breath, the new ally of the Allies made its appearance. About 
the 28th the Germans discovered that water was rising in the 
ditches and beginning to flow over the flat land. The peril was 
imminent, and on the 29th they began a new series of furious 
attacks, hoping to break through before it should be forever too 
late. Their only hope lay in capturing the Nieuport buttress, 
containing the engineering works by which alone the floods could 
be controlled. But this strong position, supported by the Allied 
flotilla off the coast, defied every assault. Just to the east the gray- 
clad invaders, struggling through the mire and the rising waters, 
"hideous, drenched to the waist, and smeared with mud to the tops 
of their heads," stormed the railway embankment and entered 
Ramscappelle. They maintained themselves in the village for a 
brief space but were soon thrown back. Elsewhere the line held. 
The waters continued to rise. Soon from the Dixmude-Nieu- 
port railway embankment the Allied defenders looked out 
across a flood two or three miles wide, covered with debris and 
swollen German corpses (Fig. 17), which effectively blocked the 
Kaiser's frantic drive toward the Channel ports. The Teutonic 
hordes were faced by a liquid trap which yawned to engulf them. 
Beneath the muddy waters were hidden ditches and canals into 
which men would suddenly plunge over their heads, and bottom- 
less mud which would hold them fast in the flood. The level 
surface of the liquid could offer no shelter from the fire of sharp- 
shooter and machine gunner, and those who fell wounded must 
drown where they dropped. Numerical superiority and Prussian 
discipline were alike helpless before such a barrier. The Germans 
retired northward beyond the flood, abandoning quantities of 
arms and ammunition. And while they might later seize the 
ruins of Dixmude north of the river, the barrier itself was abso- 
lutely impregnable. The Battle of the Yser was over. 

The First Battle of Ypres 

While the Battle of the Yser was still in progress the Germans 
were preparing the blow designed to shatter the Ypres bastion. 



FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES 61 

The Allied command, judging that the best defense would be an 
offensive movement eastward and northeastward from the 
bastion, and seeing in the situation along the Yser an added 
reason for attacking the German forces opposed to them, on 
October 21 ordered an advance northeastward against the 
northern part of the Messines-Passchendaele ridge, still held by 
the Germans. After taking the ridge the offensive would be 
developed as far as possible in the direction of Roulers and 
Thourout, thereby flanking the Germans attacking the line of 
the Yser, with Bruges and Ghent as more remote objectives. A 
little ground was gained, but the stiff German resistance, the 
growing menace of increasing German numbers, and the necessity 
of awaiting Allied reinforcements made further attacks against 
the northern end of the ridge inadvisable. The troops were then 
ordered to strengthen their positions along the ridge east and 
southeast of Ypres from Zonnebeke to Messines and to hold 
fast until a new French army hurrying northward should enter 
into the line. 

On October 22 and 23 the Germans attacked with great deter- 
mination, gaining some ground but suffering heavy losses. The 
Allies counterattacked with equal energy and tried on the 23rd 
to continue their offensive, but were held up at several points, 
their center in particular being unable to cross the small brook 
flowing from near Passchendaele down the west side of the 
ridge. For nearly a week the Allied forces endeavored without 
much success to drive the enemy from the northern part of the 
ridge about Passchendaele. 

On the 29th the Germans, exhorted by their leaders to strike 
"the decisive blow," returned to the assault with redoubled 
energy. They assembled enormous forces opposite the three- 
mile sector of the ridge between Gheluvelt and Hollebeke and 
for two days hurled them against the barrier with almost irresist- 
ible fury. On either side the main attack was supported by 
other troops. At a terrible cost they won the crest in the Ghelu- 
velt region and at several points farther south. The moment was 
critical in the extreme. But additional French forces were 



62 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

thrown into the fight; the anxious leaders were encouraged by 
the imperturbable optimism of the genius now directing the 
battle from the highest point in Flanders as later he would direct 
the whole gigantic struggle from the highest position of military 
authority; and the men responded magnificently to the demands 
of their leaders. The enemy was hurled back down the eastern 
slope, and the Kaiser, now on the front, awaited in vain the 
moment for entering Ypres. Furious counterattacks again gave 
the Germans a foothold on the crest, but the bulk of the territory 
previously held by the Allies remained in Allied possession. On 
November 5 the Kaiser returned to Germany. 

The First Battle of Ypres was in reality a bataille de rencontre. 
Two offensives, hurled against each other, both came to grief. 
If the Germans were unable to secure full possession of that part 
of the Messines-Passchendaele ridge southeast of Ypres, the 
Allies failed equally to gain the portion northeast of the town. 
The Ypres bastion was not securely in the hands of either com- 
batant, and a resumption of the struggle for mastery of this 
critically important terrain could not long be delayed. For the 
Allies the tactical situation was anything but satisfactory, be- 
cause their line described an awkward salient about Ypres, per- 
mitting a concentration of enemy fire upon that junction point 
of all important roads, railways, and canals in the vicinity. 
German possession of part of the ridge seriously complicated the 
situation and called for an opening out of the salient by pushing 
the enemy northeastward and southeastward beyond the heights 
and into the plain below. For the Germans there was no hope of 
victory in Flanders, now that passage of the Yser barrier was 
definitely excluded, until their hold on the Ypres bastion had 
been extended into conquest of the entire obstacle. 

Both combatants prepared an immediate renewal of the 
struggle. A continuous and violent bombardment by the Ger- 
man artillery and the massing of new forces behind their front 
made their intentions clear. On the Allied side orders were given 
November 6 for an offensive which should clear the enemy from 
his footholds on the bastion northeast and southeast of Ypres 



FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES 63 

and open out the salient by advancing its two sides. But every 
attempt at progress encountered violent resistance. On Novem- 
ber 9 the attacks and counterattacks became more violent along 
the whole line from Dixmude to beyond Messines, and on the 
10th the Germans launched their supreme assault. A division of 
the Guard, secretly brought to Flanders and advised by the 
Kaiser that he counted on them to succeed where their comrades 
had failed, was hurled against the Allied front. 

Along the Yser Canal from Dixmude southward, now flooded 
by the waters backing up from the locks at Nieuport, a subsidi- 
ary attack gave to the enemy that part of Dixmude east of the 
barrier and secured him a precarious foothold on the west bank 
at the Maison du Passeur, halfway between Dixmude and Ypres. 
Elsewhere the barrier held firm. But the grand assault was 
delivered along the Ypres bastion farther southeast. It made 
progress, but only at terrible cost. "The regiments of the Guard 

. . . had been, north of Gheluvelt and between Zonnebeke 
and Passchendaele, so badly used up that they were gasping. 
Elsewhere certain regiments . . . had been, in the region of 
Poelcappelle, almost completely annihilated. 'On the 10th,' wrote 
one of the soldiers, 'we launched an assault in which almost the 
entire batallion was wiped out. In my company, in one hour, all 
fell except one officer and fifty men.'" 7 Even at such a price the 
gains were very moderate. The Messines end of the Messines- 
Passchendaele ridge was made securely German for the time, 
while the northern, or Passchendaele, end they still firmly 
held. In the center it had proved impossible to dislodge the 
Allies from their hold on the crest about Gheluvelt. Capture of a 
small part of the difficult terrain had exhausted the enemy's 
offensive power. 

This second phase of the battle, sometimes called the "Second 
Battle of Ypres," left the fate of the bastion still undecided. The 
Allies held the southern wall from Mont Kemmel westward and 
a central section of the eastern wall; while the Germans were 

7 Louis Madelin: La Bataille des Flandres, Rev. des Deux Monies, Vol. 40, 1917, 
pp. 241-276, 506-539; reference on p. 530. 



64 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

firmly established along the two ends of the eastern wall. Neither 
offensive had succeeded. Ypres was exposed to direct enemy 
observation from the Messines-Passchendaele ridge and suffered 
from accurate artillery fire. The salient, instead of being widened, 
had been rendered more cramped and dangerous than ever. On 
the other hand, the German effort to crush the obstacle had failed, 
the left wing of the Allies was still secure, and the Channel ports 
seemed farther away than ever. Neither side could succeed in any 
large operations in Flanders until the Ypres bastion was wholly 
conquered. Certainly the struggle for mastery was merely ad- 
journed. 

The Second Battle of Ypres 

During the winter of 1914-1915 there were many local com- 
bats around the Ypres bastion, in the course of which the Allies 
gained a little terrain in the direction of Passchendaele and else- 
where but lost more of the ridge crest near Gheluvelt and east of 
Mont Kemmel. It was on the morning of April 23, 1915, that 
the French and Canadian troops holding the naturally weak seg- 
ment of the front connecting the Yser River-Canal barrier near 
Lizerne* with the Messines-Passchendaele ridge barrier near 
Zonnebeke, saw a greenish-yellow cloud rolling toward them 
across the flat plain. In order to flank the Allies from their last 
hold on the eastern wall of the Ypres bastion, the Germans were 
resorting to a new and barbarous offensive weapon, poison gas. 
Completely taken by surprise, strangled by an enemy they could 
not combat, the Allies retreated in disorder. On the northwest 
the Germans succeeded in crossing the canal in the confusion and 
established bridgeheads on the west bank at Lizerne and neigh- 
boring points. The northern side of the salient was pushed a 
couple of miles nearer to Ypres, and the crest of the ridge cleared 
of Allied troops. Nothing but the most heroic action on the 
part of the defenders of the bastion prevented a complete break 
in their front and the loss of the entire stronghold. Fortunately 
the rush was stopped in front of Ypres; long and bitter fighting 
ejected the Germans from the west bank of the canal, and the 

* Five miles north of Ypres. Not shown on PI. I. 



LOCAL COMBATS 65 

Yser barrier remained intact. But the east wall of the bastion 
was in German hands, and the defenders of Ypres were subjected 
to all the tortures of an inferno as accurately controlled artillery 
fire poured upon them from every part of the salient. 

Local Combats 

In the southern part of the Flanders plain La Bassee had con- 
tinued to prove a strong point which held firm despite repeated 
local fluctuations of some magnitude north and south of it. To 
the north the British in March introduced, at Neuve Chapelle, 
the system of massed artillery fire on a limited front; but, despite 
its success in destroying the Germans' front trenches, only a 
small advance could be driven across the level plain where the 
attackers were fully exposed to a deadly fire. The British lost 
over 10,000 men on a narrow front in a few hours. During the 
first battle of Vimy Ridge in May the British again lost 8,000 
men on the same terrain. South of La Bassee the British co- 
operated in the second battle of Vimy Ridge (September) by 
undertaking an advance on Lens across the more rolling plain of 
the Gohelle, in the transition belt. Loos was captured, and the 
low but important Hill 70, dominating Lens on the north, was 
seized but could not be held. The German positions in the chalk 
were strong, the British organization for supporting and relieving 
attacking troops on the badly exposed terrain was very defective, 
and the losses in a few hours were so heavy that the operation was 
regarded as a disaster. Not until command of the plain had been 
secured by full Allied control of Vimy Ridge could operations on 
the plain below be carried on to advantage. The battles for 
Vimy Ridge and the Arras bastion are treated in a later chapter. 

Throughout the rest of 19 15 and all of 1916 the battle line in 
Flanders remained practically stationary. There were local 
struggles at various points on the front as each side endeavored 
to secure some topographic ad vantage, some point of better obser- 
vation, in preparation for larger operations in the future. The 
war on the surface was now accompanied by the war of sub- 
terranean mines on a large scale. So valuable were hill positions 



66 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

on the level plain, and so difficult to take by surface operations 
alone, that extensive tunnels were run under the hills and the 
summits, in some cases, literally blown off. In the confusion the 
hill might be seized by the attacking forces, the lines of the 
former holders deluged with artillery fire accurately directed 
from the point of vantage, enemy movements in the plain so well 
observed as to make surprise counterattacks difficult or impos- 
sible, while the new possessors of the elevation would enjoy 
comparative immunity from direct observation in their back 
areas. It was during the first half of 1916 that the bloody 
struggles for individual hills, mentioned on earlier pages (pp. 35- 
37), took place. 

Many of these local operations were hampered or defeated by 
the water and mud of the Flanders plain. Sir Douglas Haig's 
despatches covering this period abound with references to the 
extraordinary difficulties. During the fighting for the Bluff 
"heavy rain turned the ground into a quagmire so that progress 
was difficult for the attacking force." At St. Eloi "the work of 
consolidating our new position . . . proved extremely diffi- 
cult, owing to the wet soil, heavy shelling, and mine explo- 
sions; though pumps were brought up and efforts at draining 
were instituted, the result achieved was comparatively small. 
By dint of much heavy work the brigade holding these trenches 
. . . succeeded in reducing the water in the trenches by two 
feet by the morning of the 5th. This state of affairs could not, 
even so, be regarded as satisfactory; and during the 5th the 
enemy's bombardment increased in intensity, and the new 
trenches practically ceased to exist." 8 As one soldier is reported 
to have said, when told to "consolidate" his position: "It is im- 
possible to consolidate porridge." Men were swallowed up in the 
mire and suffocated, while rifles became so caked with mud that 
firing was impossible. Bayonets and bombs alone could be used 
in some of the assaults. 9 The fields became bogs and the trenches 
canals. Little progress could be made in such a terrain. 

8 Sir Douglas Haig's Despatches, London, ioio, pp. 6, 8. 

9 A. Conan Doyle: The British Campaign in France and Flanders: 1916, London, 
1917. 






THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES 67 

The Third Battle of Ypres (Battle of Messines Ridge) 

In the meantime the British were at one place carrying on 
mining operations on a scale never before attempted in warfare. 
The Ypres bastion was again to become the center of a violent 
struggle, in which the British would seek to dislodge the enemy 
from its eastern wall, the Messines-Passchendaele ridge. 

The positions held by us in Ypres salient since May, 191 5, were far 
from satisfactory [writes Sir Douglas Haig]. They were completely 
overlooked by the enemy. . . . They were certain to be costly to 
maintain against a serious attack, in which the enemy would enjoy all 
the advantages in observation and in the placing of his artillery. Our 
positions would be much improved by the capture of the Messines- 
Wytschaete Ridge*, and of the high ground which extends thence north- 
eastwards forsomeseven miles and then trends north through Broodseinde 
and Passchendaele. . . . The village of Messines, situated on the 
southern spur of the ridge, commands a wide view of the valley of the 
Lys, and enfiladed the British lines to the south. Northwest of Messines 
the village of Wytschaete, situated ... on the highest part of the 
ridge, from its height of about 260 feet commands even more completely 
the town of Ypres and the whole of the old British positions in the Ypres 
salient. . . . The natural advantages of the pos.tion were excep- 
tional, and during more than two years of occupation the enemy had de- 
voted the greatest skill and industry to developing them to the utmost. 10 

Ludendorff emphasizes the importance of the ridge to the 
Germans, referring particularly to the value of direct observa- 
tion of enemy positions from the ground and of having his own 
back areas shielded from the view of the enemy. 11 

But experience had shown that any operation against the 
formidable obstacles of the ridge must, in order to be successful, 
be conducted on an elaborate scale, with large forces, and only 
after the most careful preliminary preparation. Accordingly 
early in 1916, nearly a year and a half before the blow was 
launched, the British began the building of the network of roads 

* Southern part of the Messines-Passchendaele ridge. 

10 Haig, pp. 82, 105. 

11 Erich von Ludendorff: Ludendorff's Own Story, August, 1914-November, 
1918: The Great War from the Siege of Liege to the Signing of the Armistice. 
As Viewed from the Grand Headquarters of the German Army, 2 vols., New York, 
1919; reference in Vol. 2, p. 101. 



68 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

and railways necessary to move troops, guns, munitions, and 
other supplies in enormous quantities with great speed, and the 
excavating of a series of tunnels under the ridge in order to blow 
the Germans out of their strong position by a series of mine 
explosions. The work of preparation was peculiarly difficult on 
account of the nature of the terrain. On the flat plain there was 
nothing to conceal the new roads and railways undergoing con- 
struction, and enemy observers on the ridge crest directed the 
accurate registering of these for artillery fire when they should 
come into use. Yet without an abundance of good roads as well 
as railways the attackers would find their task impossible in a 
region of mud and marsh intersected by countless streams, 
canals, and ditches. There was therefore no possibility of a 
surprise attack. The enemy would know what was coming, and 
prepare for it. Only in the case of the mines could a wholly 
unexpected element be injected into the attack, and there was 
doubt as to whether the Germans might not even be forewarned 
of this danger. Sir Douglas Haig speaks of the countermining 
carried on by the Germans and says they realized the peril, 12 
but Ludendorff claims that mining operations had largely ceased, 
that no sound of underground work on the part of the enemy 
could be heard, and implies that the explosions were totally 
unexpected. 13 In any event, so saturated with water were the 
underground formations and so much trouble did the Germans 
themselves encounter during their tunneling, that they probably 
had no conception of the stupendous scale of the British opera- 
tions, even if they suspected mining. The difficulties were in- 
deed enormous; but they were surmounted through the scientific 
skill of the chief geologist of the British Expeditionary Force, 
Lieutenant Colonel T. Edgeworth David, who made a careful 
study of the alternate layers of sand and clay in the ridge and of 
the variations of the water levels in each, with the result that 
tunneling on a grand scale was successfully carried out. After 
fifteen months of titanic labor twenty-four giant mines were 

12 Haig, p. 104. 
"Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 31. 



THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES 69 

placed under the ridge, charged with over one million pounds of 
high explosives. 

In the water-soaked plain one of the difficult problems to be 
solved was the supply of sanitary water to the attacking forces. 
Advantage was taken of natural lakes and of catch pits con- 
structed on Mont Kemmel, from which water was piped to 
the front. Sterilizing barges were established on the Lys, and 
materials assembled for extending the pipe lines up the ridge as 
the attack progressed. With the aid of pack animals and carrying 
parties good water reached the troops within twenty to forty 
minutes after the capture of new positions, while a week after 
the assault began water was being piped to the crest of the ridge 
at the rate of between 450,000 and 600,000 gallons daily. 14 

Full appreciation of the formidable character of the ridge 
obstacle was evidenced not alone by the grand scale on which 
preparations for the attack were made but also by the care with 
which the troops were instructed as to the form of the terrain 
on which they were to operate. Relief topographic models, 
showing every detail of ridge, spur, ravine, valley, wood, as well 
as all artificial features, were prepared and carefully studied. 
The different operations of the attack were rehearsed on the 
models; and when officers and men knew well both the parts 
they were to play and the stage on which they were to play them, 
all was ready for the opening act. 

On June 7, 1917, at ten minutes past three in the early dawn, 
Lloyd George, sitting at his telephone in London, heard the simul- 
taneous explosion of nineteen mines under Messines Ridge. The 
battle was on. Nineteen volcanoes vomited fire, mud, and men, 
the country shook with a great earthquake, craters as much as 140 
yards in diameter opened in the crest of the ridge and engulfed 
the defenders. In the awful stillness which succeeded the sub- 
terranean upheaval observers at a distance stood appalled, and 
so unearthly was the scene before their eyes that strong men 
suffered the impression of having awakened in the hereafter 
to behold a glimpse of the inferno. Then began the victorious 

" Haig, p. 103. 



70 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

advance. Terrified and disorganized, smothered by a terrific bom- 
bardment, and drenched with liquid fire pouring on them from 
airplanes in the sky, the Germans were no match for the British 
forces which swept over them with the precision of clockwork. 
Ludendorff admits that "the moral effect of the explosions was 
simply staggering." In a few hours Messines Ridge for a distance 
of some seven miles, from its southern extremity to the vicinity 
of Gheluvelt, was once more in Allied hands. 

The consequences of the victory were clearly expressed by 
two British officers who, according to one account of the battle, 
stood on the captured crest, the first looking back into the plain 
which had been a literal hell for him and his comrades during 
all the long months that Germany had held the ridge, the second 
looking eastward to where the Germans in the plain below would 
now become the chief sufferers. "My God," cried the first, 
"it's a wonder they let us live there at all!" "It's great to look 
eastward !" said the other. 

The Fourth Battle of Ypres 
With the southern end of the Messines-Passchendaele ridge in 
Allied hands, preparations could be pushed for the attack on the 
northern end. Again the preparations on the flat plain were 
fully exposed to German observation from the ridge north of 
Gheluvelt, and from minor elevations, like Pilckem ridge,* within 
the salient; while the water-soaked clay permitted no such deep 
dugouts and subterranean cellars and caverns as could be used 
in the chalk upland of the Somme plain to shelter troops assem- 
bling for attack. Sir Douglas Haig complained of both these 
difficulties of the terrain. "On no previous occasion," he writes, 
"not excepting the attack on the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge, 
had the whole of the ground from which we had to attack been so 
completely exposed to the enemy's observation. Even after the 
enemy had been driven from the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge, he 
still possessed excellent direct observation over the salient from 
the east and southeast, as well as from the Pilckem ridge to the 

* Three miles north of Ypres. Spelled Pilken on PI. I. 



FOURTH BATTLE OF YPRES 71 

north. Nothing existed at Ypres to correspond with the vast 
caves and cellars which proved of such value in the days prior to 
the Arras battle, and the provision of shelter for the troops pre- 
sented a very serious problem." 

Preparations were completed by the last of July, and on the 
morning of the 31st the fourth great battle for possession of the 
Ypres bastion, often called the "Third Battle of Ypres" because 
the Messines operation was given a special name, opened on a 
front of fifteen miles. The main attack was directed northeast- 
ward toward the ridge, from that part of the front lying between 
the Gheluvelt region and the Yser barrier. Fortunately the 
Germans for some unknown reason, possibly from fear of new 
mine explosions, had withdrawn some distance from the east side 
of the Yser Canal barrier north of Ypres, thus permitting the 
Allied forces holding that part of the line to debouch from behind 
the obstacle and assist in driving the enemy northeast. The 
British Commander-in-Chief points out that "this operation 
greatly facilitated the task of the Allied troops on this part of 
the battle front, to whose attack the Yser Canal had previously 
presented a formidable obstacle." 

As the attack progressed, the greatest opposition was encoun- 
tered east of Ypres, where the enemy enjoyed the great advan- 
tages of the main ridge position and where forest patches on the 
sandy formation had been organized into strong points of resis- 
tance. Tanks were employed, but encountered great difficulty 
from the clay soil. Their employment in the preceding battle 
had not been a great success, partly because they could not 
advance rapidly enough to be of service. The Allied hold on the 
ridge crest was extended a little, but only at the cost of heroic 
exertions. Then intervened in full force the worst enemy of an 
offensive. Rain began falling that night and continued for four 
days without intermission, turning the battlefield into a quagmire. 

The low-lying, clayey soil, torn by shells and sodden with rain, 
turned to a succession of vast muddy pools. The valleys of the choked 
and overflowing streams were speedily transformed into long stretches 
of bog, impassable except by a few well-defined tracks, which became 



72 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

marks for the enemy's artillery. To leave these tracks was to risk death 
by drowning, and in the course of the subsequent fighting on several 
occasions both men and pack animals were lost in this way. In these 
conditions operations of any magnitude became impossible, and the 
resumption of our offensive was necessarily postponed until a period 
of fine weather should allow the ground to recover. . . . This una- 
voidable delay in the development of our offensive was of the greatest 
service to the enemy. 16 

In the middle of August the battle was resumed and some 
ground gained despite great difficulties encountered in the charac- 
ter of the terrain. But again the rain fell, the ground became im- 
passable, and the offensive was reduced to a series of small local 
operations. It was not until September 20 that major opera- 
tions were once more feasible. Heavy attacks on an eight-mile 
front on that day gained additional ground on the ridge and wid- 
ened the salient farther north. The battle raged for several days, 
and on the 26th another grand assault on the ridge captured the 
famous Polygon Wood stronghold and Zonnebeke. Here the 
struggle raged with the utmost fury, and the ground gained was 
only held at a heavy cost. On October 4 the British battering 
ram once more launched its powerful blows against that part of 
the ridge east of Zonnebeke and despite serious obstacles gained 
an additional section of the crest. On the plain to the northwest a 
little mound called 19 Metre Hill caused the attackers consider- 
able embarrassment. 

Rains were now frequent, and the ground was in terrible con- 
dition. Nevertheless, another assault was attempted October 9, 
and progress was made under most painful conditions. Fighting 
in the mire continued, and on the 12th the indomitable British 
again plowed forward. But they were attempting the impos- 
sible. "The valleys of the streams which run westward from the 
main ridge were found to be impassable. It was therefore deter- 
mined not to persist in the attack, and the advance towards our 
more distant objectives was cancelled." Natural barriers were 
bringing the great drive to a halt. "It was the difficulty of move- 
ment," reported the British Commander-in-Chief, "far more 

15 Haig, p. 116. 



FOURTH BATTLE OF YPRES 73 

than hostile resistance, which continued to limit our progress, 
and now made it doubtful whether the capture of the remainder 
of the ridge before winter finally set in was possible." 

However, the struggle was not given up without further 
efforts to gain all of the vital crest position. Local battles of the 
greatest intensity were waged almost daily, and, every time the 
sun or a favorable wind dried the ground even a little, new 
assaults on a larger scale were attempted. The men plowed on, 
"in spite of immense difficulties from marsh and floods in the 
more low-lying ground," and of vigorous resistance from the 
enemy posted in excellent positions on the spurs and in the 
undulations of the main ridge. Ground gained was sometimes 
yielded because in the advance the rifles of the infantry became 
so choked with mud that it was impossible to use them when the 
enemy counterattacked. This was what happened at Gheluvelt. 
"We went with our rifles and Lewis guns bound up with flannel," 
wrote one officer according to Conan Doyle,"so as to keep the 
mud out, and with special cleaning apparatus in our pockets; but 
you can't clean a rifle when your own hands are covered an inch 
thick." Nor can one keep the flannel wrappings on guns and at 
the same time use them in pushing an attack. Ludendorff paints 
the picture from the German side : "The horror of the shell hole 
area of Verdun was surpassed. It was no longer life at all. It 
was mere unspeakable suffering. And through this world of 
mud the attackers dragged themselves, slowly but steadily, and 
in dense masses. Caught in the advanced zone of our hail of 
fire they often collapsed, and the lonely man in the shell hole 
breathed again. Rifle and machine gun jammed with the mud. 
Man fought against man, and only too often the mass was suc- 
cessful." 16 

Several successive assaults on the ridge at Passchendaele gave 
the Allies possession of that village on November 6, but the 
forces of Nature finally triumphed over the forces of man. The 
lowland had long been one vast morass. Marshy beeks, or brooks, 
such as the Steenbeek, the Brombeek, the Watervlietbeek, and 

16 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 105. 



74 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

others, were flooded marshes transformed into an awful m'.re by 
heavy shelling. In the seemingly bottomless mud the men could 
not outmaneuver the concrete "pill boxes" and, fully exposed to 
their murderous fire, fell by the thousands. On the ridge, where 
the ground was a little less difficult so far as concerns its physical 
condition, the form of the surface afforded compensating advan- 
tages to the defenders. Artillery support of attacks was difficult 
because guns stuck in the mud and because shells bursting in the 
plastic material did less than the normal damage. "Throughout 
the major part of the Ypres Battle, and especially in its latter 
stages, the condition of the ground made the use of tanks dif- 
ficult or impossible." As the mud became worse the task of 
keeping weapons clean and serviceable became more and more 
difficult and was an important element in bringing the offen- 
sive to a close. The long battle, which had raged for three months 
and a half with a persistence and a fury theretofore equaled only 
by the 1916 Battle of the Somme (p. 144), was ended by the inter- 
vention of insuperable natural obstacles before its objective had 
been fully attained. Much had been won at great cost. Most of 
the Ypres bastion was in Allied hands; the line of the Yser, now 
flooded from Nieuport to Ypres, impregnable to frontal attacks 
and solidly buttressed on the sea at one end, was at last reason- 
ably secure from the danger of a turning movement at the other 
end. But the northern end of the Messines-Passchendaele ridge, 
the eastern wall of the Ypres bastion, still remained in enemy 
hands. The whole bastion would, in the opinion of the British 
Commander-in-Chief, have been captured in a few weeks had 
not the character of the terrain offered greater difficulties than 
did the military power of the German armies. Looking back on 
the whole history of the operations and giving full credit to the 
fighting ability of the enemy, he could say: "Despite the magni- 
tude of his efforts, it was the immense natural difficulties, accen- 
tuated manifold by the abnormally wet weather, rather than the 
enemy's resistance, which limited our progress and prevented 
the complete capture of the ridge." n 

17 Haig, p. 133- 



BATTLE OF THE LYS 75 

The Battle of the Lys 

While the fourth battle of Ypres was was still in progress, 
Canadian troops in a brilliant local operation on August 15 
seized and held Hill 70, dominating Lens on the north. This 
low elevation rose enough above the general level of the plain of 
I he Gohelle in the transition belt to give good observation over a 
wide range of country. With it in German hands the Allies had 
suffered severely from accurate artillery fire; now that it was in 
their own hands they could direct a well-controlled fire upon the 
defenses of Lens. Other local operations occupied the armies on 
the Battlefield of Flanders during the remainder of the year 1917, 
but it was not until April 9, 191 8, that the plain was to witness 
another battle on the grander scale. 

The great German advance across the plain of the Somme, be- 
gun March 21 as the first move in a desperate effort to achieve 
victory before American strength should be fully developed, was 
wearing itself out, and Ludendorff was ready to launch a new 
attack. He had rejected the Flanders plain as the scene of the first 
offensive operation because in the south the Lys barrier, against 
which the main force of the blow would strike, was at that season 
too formidable an obstacle. The possibility of a direct attack 
against the still more formidable barriers of the Yser floods and 
the Ypres bastion was not even considered. But in April excep- 
tionally favorable weather had dried the muds and marshes of the 
Lys valley to some extent, and it seemed feasible to launch an 
offensive across that part of the plain. 18 

Ludendorff fully realized that the operation could not achieve 
any real success unless the two strong natural bastions defending 
the plain on the north and south were captured. He had just 
assaulted the Arras bastion in vain (p. 188), but would try again 
by a flank attack from the north as soon as he had pushed west- 
ward across the plain some distance. "To have the high ground 
in our possession," he writes, "was bound to be decisive in any 
fighting in the plain of the Lys." He would likewise assault the 
Ypres bastion from the south as progress was made in the plain. 

18 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, pp. 220, 238. 



7.6 



BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 



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BATTLE OF THE LYS 77 

ft is possible, indeed, that the bastion, being the key to the whole 
situation in Flanders, was the main objective of the operations, 
and that the Battle of the Lys was as a whole merely another 
Battle of Ypres. 

Early on the morning of April 9, under cover of a dense mist or 
fog, the Germans struck on a ten-mile front from the strong 
point on slightly higher and drier land in the La Bassee-Givenchy 
region to a point just southwest of Armentieres. Portuguese 
troops holding several miles of this front were routed, the attack- 
ers poured through the gap, and the defenders fell back at once 
on the natural barriers of the Lys River and its tributary, the 
Lawe. Bridges over the streams were unfortunately not every- 
where completely destroyed, and the pursuers were able to cross 
at several points. Nevertheless the battle continued furiously 
along the rivers, and parties of Germans reaching the west bank 
were repeatedly thrown back. Ludendorff complained that 
"toward Estaires we did not penetrate far enough, but stuck fast 
in the Lys position; toward the Lawe, also, our progress was but 
slight." Other features of the terrain were giving him trouble: 
"The ground was still soft in places, and this made it very difficult 
to bridge the enemy's trench system . . . The detachments 
of tanks we had employed had proved a hindrance. It took a 
long time to get up guns and ammunition;" 19 while lack of obser- 
vation on the flat plain made proper artillery support difficult. 
Gradually, however, the outflanking of their defenses by the 
German advance across the southern edge of the plain and at the 
crossings which they had been able to retain compelled the 
British to abandon the line of the Lys, and the Germans pushed 
deeper into the pocket. The defenders found it difficult to follow 
closely the enemy's movements and intentions in a flat country 
where numerous trees cut off the view, especially in the middle of 
the plain, far from the rimming heights which alone could offer 
good direct observation; while their field of fire was frequently 
cut short by willows and other growth along the watercourses. 

Fortunately, Nature had set a limit to the depth of the advance 

19 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, pp. 240, 245. 



78 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

possible. As the pocket was deepened and widened it was at 
every point coming closer to the rimming heights which narrow 
the plain westward until the bounding highlands meet near St. 
Omer. Soon the advancing enemy would begin to fight with 
direct observation favoring the defenders (Fig. 23), and then 
affairs would wear a totally new complexion. Already, indeed, 
small outlying elevations in the plain were beginning to tell their 
story. There were fierce combats at Mont de Lille, Windmill 
Hill, and Mont de Merris, three low hills on an east-west line 
from 10 to 15 miles southwest of Ypres. These checked the 
assaults and destroyed the vigor of the offensive. The bottom 
of the pocket was approaching the eastern edge of the great 
Forest of Nieppe south of Hazebrouck. 

It was high time that the two bastions threatening the Ger- 
mans on the north and south should be conquered, for the pocket 
was already so deep that their rear and flanks were seriously 
menaced. To continue westward into the trap would be folly 
unless its jaws could be broken. The attack on the Ypres bastion 
had begun April 10 but was making slow progress. On the 18th 
a violent assault directed at the Arras bastion was launched on a 
front extending from Givenchy westward. Here the bastion was 
protected by the outlying barrier formed by the Aire-La Bassee 
Canal. At Hinges, northwest of Bethune, the canal has a north- 
ward bend around a hill which commands long stretches of the 
barrier to the east and west. If the Germans could seize this 
hill they might breach the preliminary defense and attack the 
main obstacle. Eighteen gray-clad battalions leaped to the 
assault, but the line held. A well-directed British fire mowed 
down the enemy troops where they attempted to cross bridges 
over the canal, and the strong point at Givenchy resisted every 
effort at capture. Along the whole barrier the attack met a 
bloody repulse. The southern bastion was unshakable. 

The Fifth Battle of Ypres 
On the north the preliminary attacks were more successful. 
As already stated, the Ypres bastion was assaulted April 10, the 



FIFTH BATTLE OF YPRES 79 

Germans sweeping forward on a wide front from Ploegsteert 
Wood north of Armentieres to Hollebeke. Filtering along the 
valleys of the Douve River and other streams heading against 
the ridge, under cover of a mist which made defense difficult, 
parties of the enemy outflanked the British positions at Ploeg- 
steert Wood and Messines and secured a foothold on the southern 
end of the barrier. The lower crest at Neuve Eglise, parallel to, 
and an outer defense of, the main east-west Mont Kemmel-Mont 
des Cats ridge, was bitterly contested for two days; and when 
the British were forced from it they had to yield at the same 
time other portions of their lines dominated from it. The south- 
ern wall of the bastion was being gravely menaced. 

Day after day the struggle raged with unabating fury, the 
enemy increasing his hold on the southern end of the eastern wall 
of the bastion inch by inch until both Messines and Wytschaete 
were in his possession. Then on April 17 the attack was con- 
centrated on the adjacent Mont Kemmel (Fig. 3), forming the 
eastern end of the southern wall. Two heavy assaults were re- 
pulsed on that day. French troops now took over the defense, 
while the Germans prepared to renew their attempts to capture 
the commanding position. A week later the slopes of Kemmel 
were flowing blood as German Alpine troops, skilled in hill fight- 
ing, were storming the position, supported by a grand assault 
against the whole eastern end of the ridge from north of Bailleul to 
west of Wytschaete, and by "a frightful charge of airplanes like 
tempestuous cavalry" which rained fire from the sky. 20 With 
prodigal disregard of the cost in lives, Von Arnim flung his masses 
forward again and again until their very numbers smothered the 
defenders and Mont Kemmel passed into German hands. 

The situation was now serious indeed. The apex of the bastion, 
including the ends of both the southern and eastern walls where 
they joined, was held by the enemy. From Mont Kemmel the 
Germans overlooked the entire system of defense and all com- 
munication lines behind the eastern wall, where the British still 

20 Louis Gillet: La bataille des Monts de Flandre, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Vol. Si, 
1919. PP- 640-670; reference on p. 663. 



80 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

held their advanced positions along the crest, won at such a 
terrible price the preceding year. Their position was too perilous 
to endure. Already the British Commander-in-Chief had reduced 
the risks by withdrawing from Passchendaele behind the marshy 
valley of the Steenbeek, thus yielding the more northern portion 
of his ridge holdings and decreasing the number of troops in the 
apex of the Ypres salient. But so valuable to the enemy was the 
dominating height of Mont Kemmel that surrender of the entire 
eastern wall became a painful necessity. With heavy hearts the 
British retired from the Messines- Passchendaele ridge April 26 
and 27, and drew their lines tighter about Ypres. 

It remained for the Germans to take the rest of the southern 
wall of the bastion. With the Mont Kemmel-Mont Cassel ridge 
wholly theirs, the Allies would be compelled, as Ludendorff 
points out, to abandon the impregnable Yser barrier. All Bel- 
gium would be conquered, the Channel ports gained, and the 
Allies forced back on the Artois upland with their front in the 
form of a dangerous salient which they could hardly hope 
to hold. 

Without delay the Germans pressed forward to complete the 
great task. French and British counterattacks to recapture 
Mont Kemmel were first beaten off, the new defenders of the hill 
using the marshy Kemmel Brook to excellent advantage. The 
French were completely held up at this small but difficult ob- 
stacle. British troops crossed waist deep in the water but could 
not effect a permanent lodging on the slopes beyond. Now the 
Germans in their turn rushed to the assault. But the little 
valley could not be passed. Four times they swept down the 
smooth slopes to drive the Allied forces from behind the barrier, 
and four times a murderous fire mowed them down as with an 
invisible scythe. Only a heavy blow on a large scale could 
shatter the defense, and Von Arnim's army was incapable of 
striking such a blow. Too large a proportion of it lay dead on 
the sloping walls of the bastion, and the survivors were too 
exhausted for any more supreme efforts. If the bastion had not 
been strong enough to withstand entirely the blows of the Ger- 



WITHDRAWAL FROM LYS SALIENT 81 

man battering ram, it had at least smashed the machine beyond 
repair. Ludendorff might dream of renewing the offensive in this 
region and completing his difficult undertaking; but the dream 
would never come true. The Ypres bastion, its walls broken and 
bloodstained, had saved the whole left wing of the Allied armies 
from incalculable disaster. 

Withdrawal from the Lys Salient 
It was Ludendorff's intention, after his offensives on the Aisne 
and Marne had weakened the Allies' power of resistance and had 
led them to reduce their forces in Flanders, to strike again on 
the Flanders front and attempt the complete reduction of the 
Ypres bastion, the key to the Allies' whole position on the low 
plain. 21 But Foch's great counteroffensive blasted all such 
hopes. Eight days after Foch launched his attack on the Marne 
plateau (p. 312) the German leaders knew their Flanders offensive 
was doomed. The German armies must economize men by 
shortening their front. About July 26 they began the evacuation 
of the vast accumulations of munitions and stores from the 
dangerous salient which they had made in the hope of conquering 
the Ypres bastion and in which they had maintained themselves 
only at a heavy cost in casualties inflicted by Allied artillery fire 
concentrated from all sides and accurately directed from the rim- 
ming heights. Early in August local withdrawals of troops in the 
salient began, and at the end of the month the retirement on a 
grand scale was under way. German rear guards made excellent 
use of the topographic features of the plain, a few men protected 
by natural obstacles holding the Allies at bay from point to point 
so that the retreat was able to proceed in an orderly fashion. 
Along the Neuve Eglise ridge and at Hill 63 the resistance was 
particularly hard to overcome. But the enemy was not trying 
to stay in the salient, he was trying to get out; and for this 
reason topographic advantages were utilized for the moment 
only, being yielded up whenever the pressure of the pursuers 
became uncomfortably strong. Early in September the Ger- 

21 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, pp. 253, 278. 



82 BATTLEFIELD OF FLANDERS 

mans were out of the trap, Mont Kemmel was surrendered, and 
the battle line ran across the plain from Givenchy to the apex 
of the Ypres bastion near Messines. The Germans now held the 
eastern wall of the bastion, the Allies all of the southern wall. 

The Sixth Battle of Ypres 

On the 28th day of September, 19 18, four British divisions 
sprang out of their trenches at the foot of the Messines-Passchen- 
daele ridge east of Ypres, without preliminary bombardment, and 
in a few hours swept the German defenders from the crest and 
down into the plain to the east. To the south the crest of the 
ridge about Messines and Wytschaete was attained, while 
Belgian troops farther north cleared Houthulst Forest and 
reached the northern continuation of the ridge west of Staden. 
The King of the Belgians was leading an Allied army of 
Belgians, French, and British out of the Ypres bastion to final 
victory. 

Opposed to them was a weakened and demoralized German 
army. Less than five divisions were found defending the vital 
ridge crest east of Ypres. Their quality was far below that of the 
German army of former days. For more than two months an 
unbroken series of disasters had been sapping their confidence 
and lowering their morale, while the disintegrating influence of a 
skillful propaganda was beginning to destroy their discipline. 
No topographic barrier, however strong, could be held by such an 
army. In a single day the British won at slight cost what they 
had fought long bloody months to attain a year before. 

A few days later King Albert's forces held all the Ypres bastion. 
On the north the Belgians had passed beyond the ridge from 
Dixmude to Staden and were facing the marshy lowland of 
Handzaeme. Farther south the British were far out over the 
plain to the east and approaching the lower Lys. Between them 
the French were beyond the ridge and advancing on Roulers. 
On October 2 the Germans began a further retirement on the 
southern Flanders front, from the edge of the chalk upland south 
of Lens to the Lys at Armentieres. 



RETREAT FROM FLANDERS 83 

The Retreat from Flanders 

Henceforth it was an unbroken story of retreat, sometimes 
voluntary as to the given sector because of disaster elsewhere, 
sometimes forced at that point by a new Allied offensive; always 
pressed heavily by the armies of His Majesty the King of the 
Belgians, which now included two divisions of American troops. 
Throughout the retreat it was the series of more or less parallel 
rivers, whose northeastward courses were determined by the initial 
slope of the plain, which the Germans utilized most extensively as 
temporary lines of defense. By the middle of October the Ger- 
mans were back behind the Lys barrier on a twenty-five mile front, 
from near Armentieres to northeast of Courtrai. Farther north 
the retreat was in rapid progress ; Ostend and Bruges were evacu- 
ated, and in a few days the northern sand belt west of the Eecloo 
canal was free of an enemy who had not paused to take much ad- 
vantage of such topographic defense lines as existed. South of the 
Lys the retiring Germans stood for a time along the Deule, offer- 
ing strong resistance behind its marshes and canal. A week later 
it was the Scheldt from Valenciennes to Avelghem which protected 
the defeated hordes of the Kaiser on a front of 40 to 50 miles. 

The Scheldt was part of the famous "Hermann Stellung," 
which near Avelghem crossed to the Lys, followed it northward 
to the Eecloo canal, then followed the canal to the Dutch border 
(Fig. 55). South of Valenciennes the Hermann Line followed up 
the Selle River as we shall see in a later chapter (p. 211). This 
great defensive position, based almost entirely on natural obsta- 
cles, was reconnoitered by the Germans, and the work of strength- 
ening it begun as soon as it became evident that a retreat from 
Flanders was unavoidable. The entire Hermann Stellung, across 
the Flanders plain and into the chalk country farther south, was 
now occupied by the Germans, who were greatly relieved to have 
a practically unbroken barrier of marshy valley, river, and canal, 
150 miles long, between them and their enemies. When the 
Hermann Line was finally shattered along the Lys, the Scheldt, 
and the Selle, the Germans fled eastward toward the Antwerp- 
Meuse Line, their last important defensive system west of the 
Rhine. The war in Flanders was over. 



CHAPTER III 

THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME: 
THE DRY CHALK PLAIN BATTLEFIELD 

In the early summer of 1914 a dusty traveler on the highway 
from Amiens to St. Quentin paused in the open expanse of the 
rolling plain to look about him. North, east, south, or west, 
everywhere the same monotonous landscape met his gaze, 
the same dreary waste of country stretching away in gentle 
undulations to the level horizon. The main highway descended 
a gentle slope at his feet and in a straight line crossed a shallow 
depression hardly deserving the name of valley, to mount the 
gentle slope beyond, disappearing and reappearing as suc- 
cessive low hills were crossed, like a narrow white ribbon laid 
down upon the uneven surface with geometrical precision. 
Near by a minor road curved gracefully around a projecting 
hill spur and disappeared into a shallow ravine soon lost in the 
maze of undulations. Far to the north a double row of poplars, 
silhouetted against the sky line, showed where a more distant 
highway took its course across the plain, while two dark patches 
of trees, tiny remnants of once greater forests, rose faintly above 
the southeastern horizon. An occasional isolated cluster of 
peasant homes with green shade trees spreading above thatched 
or tiled roofs, the tall chimney of a sugar refinery, and the 
smoke of a distant locomotive were the only signs of life in the 
sleepy landscape. Elsewhere treeless low hills and treeless 
shallow valleys succeeded each other in endless procession as 
far as the eye could reach. Such in 1914 was the stage upon 
which was soon to be played one of the most tragic acts in the 
World War drama. 

Could our traveler have visited the plain of the Somme in 

Note — For Chapters III and IV the reader should constantly consult the detailed 
map of the battlefield in the pocket (PI. II) and the block diagrams (Figs. 14, 36, 
and 64). 



GENERAL ASPECT 



85 



the days before the hand of man changed the features which 
Nature gave it, he would have found it almost entirely covered 
by vast forests. Where now he could sweep with his eye a 
range of country almost equal to that visible on the rolling 
Great Plains of western America, then he would perforce have 







Fig. 24 — Generalized sketch map of the Battlefield of the Somme. Ruled areas 
are higher than adjacent unruled areas, and especially so where the ruling is con- 
tinuous. For topographic details and place names referred to in the text, see PL II 
and Figs. 14, 36, and 64. 

had to thread his way through a woodland so dense that it 
concealed even what was close at hand. But very early in his- 
tory the destruction of the forests was begun in order to make 
way for a more productive agriculture. When the Roman 
legions first entered this part of Gaul they found large clear- 
ings already effected and proceeded to extend their limits. 
With the coming of the Benedictines in the seventh century 
and the growth of their agricultural communities the destruc- 



86 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

tion of the forests was carried on more vigorously than ever. 
In the tenth and eleventh centuries there began another period 
of rapid deforestation, coinciding with the new period of colo- 
nization and agricultural activity by the monks which followed 
the era of agricultural stagnation due to the Norman invasions. 




% 



Fig. 25 — Chalk area of northern France, on which the 
Battlefield of the Somme is located. The white portion of 
the map shows the extent of the chalk, which is, however, 
often partially concealed by overlying deposits of loam, 
loess, and clay. Ruled areas represent other rocks. 
Note that the forests (dotted areas) have been almost 
entirely cut away from the chalk area, because of the value 
of the land for agriculture. (Modified after Demangeon.) 



The rulers of state and of church, the great lords and the pro- 
prietors of vast domains, eager to increase their wealth by turn- 
ing forest land into productive fields, encouraged their subjects 
and serfs by rich rewards to cut down the trees and entrusted 
the exploitation of the cleared lands to the energetic occupants 
of the monasteries. By the opening of the eighteenth century 
the forests were reduced to scattered remnants separated by 



GENERAL ASPECT 87 

broader areas of cultivated fields. Still the process of destroy- 
ing the woodlands continued, especially when in the nineteenth 
century the number of small farmers seeking new lands to 
cultivate greatly increased. In the Department of the Somme 
there were cut down in the four decades between the years 1792 
and 1833 between 7,000 and 8,000 acres of forest. But it was the 
introduction of sugar beet culture which finally gave to the 
woodlands their coup de grace. In the feverish desire to gain every 
square inch of land for the new source of wealth, infertile tracts 
which could support nothing but trees were robbed of their only 
possible produce. Such is the history which transformed the vast 
forests of an earlier day into that dreary expanse of open, rolling 
plain (Fig. 25) over which swept the waves of German invasion 
in 1914. 

During the war what was merely dreary became the acme 
of desolation. Four times the contending armies carried their 
work of destruction forward or backward over the plain. The 
productive fields were trampled under foot, seamed with an 
endless network of trenches, and pitted with the shell craters 
of countless bombardments. Shapeless heaps of stone, brick, 
mortar, and tiles reveal the site of former villages; the sugar 
refineries and other evidences of human industry are gaunt 
ruins: stumps show where the double rows of poplars lined 
the roads and where occasional orchards added their wealth 
to the scattered communities; while the remaining patches 
of woodland, some the product of reforestation on infertile 
tracts, are only marked by shattered trunks and splintered 
branches of the few skeleton trees which still rise from the 
ruin about them. 

Strategic Position of the Somme Battlefield 

A glance at a map of northern France shows that the Somme 
is only one of a series of rivers which flow in remarkably straight 
courses northwestward to the sea (Fig. 26). The Seine, Bethune, 
Bresle, Authie, and Canche, as well as the Avre branch of the 
Somme and a large number of smaller streams, have valleys 



88 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 



as rigidly geometrical and as distinctly parallel as if Nature 
had laid down their courses with the same giant ruler. Even 
the Therain, which flows in the opposite direction southeast 
to the Oise, has a valley parallel to those just mentioned. The 
secret seems to be that the rocks of the plain are faintly folded, 
the axes of the shallow folds trending northwest-southeast. 

Although so faint as 
usually to be unnotice- 
able to the eye, these 
folds were sufficient to 
guide the running waters 
and so to determine the 
location of parallel val- 
leys. The rocks were 
sometimes broken as 
well as bent, and the 
northwest-southeast 
breaks, or faults, likewise 
determined the course 
of stream erosion, thus 
emphasizing the parallel 
topographic features 
dependent upon rock 
structure. 

Geological structure, 
by determining surface 
form, exercises a profound influence upon the military history of a 
region. It is evident that the valleys just described must form a 
succession of natural defense lines against an enemy advancing 
north or south across the chalk uplands of Artois and Picardy. 
Indeed, it has well been said that these valleys give to northern 
France a distinctly military character. History offers ample 
confirmation of this conclusion. During the War of the Spanish 
Succession the French armies took their final stand in the cam- 
paign of 171 1 behind the Canche, Marshal Villars establishing 
his famous ne plus ultra lines on the southern side of this natural 




Fig. 26 — Parallel valleys of the Somme and 
neighboring rivers, due to parallel folds and 
faults in the underlying rocks, and constituting 
natural defense lines of great historic importance 



STRATEGIC POSITION 89 

trench from its mouth to its source, whence they continued 
eastward behind the marshes of the Scarpe and Sensee. The 
Duke of Marlborough found the French position along the 
Canche practically impregnable and directed his strategy 
against a portion of the line farther east. The Authie next 
south repeatedly served as an important line of defense, and 
the fortified town of Doullens, which guarded the eastern end 
of the valley barrier, so often suffered the horrors of fire and 
sword that certain etymologists would derive its name from 
vallum dolens, the vale of sorrow. Even the small valley of the 
Maye takes a significant rank in military geography, for it was 
along the northern slope of this depression, where it makes a 
re-entrant into a small side ravine, that the English army de- 
ployed to receive the shock of the French attack at the historic 
battle of Crecy. The soldiers of France, advancing from the 
south, were forced to cross the natural trench under fire from the 
English archers. These were placed in rows one above the other 
on the terraced northwestern wall of the ravine, which was almost 
impossible of ascent by the French cavalry. Military critics 
have ascribed the overwhelming victory of the English not 
merely to the indiscipline of the French forces but in consider- 
able part also to the magnificent natural position chosen by King 
Edward for the stand of his army. 

The River Somme has always been one of the most important 
military barriers of northern France. It served as a formid- 
able line of defense for the Roman Empire during the time of 
its decadence, and the valley walls are still dotted with traces 
of Roman defensive works for a distance of more than fifty 
miles. In the wars of France against the English, against the 
Burgundians, and against the Imperialists first one army and 
then another hurled itself against this natural moat with its 
steeply sloping walls and its floor of river and marsh. When 
Edward III invaded France and moved north toward Flanders, 
it was on the line of the Somme that the French under King 
Philip first tried to stop him; and Froissart 1 records in detail 

^eanFroissart: Chroniqucs (edit.de Lettenhove), Vol. 5, pp. 1-22, Brussels, 1870. 



9 o BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

the repeated failures of the English soldiers to cross the obstacle, 
over which Edward assured his disheartened followers that 
"God, the Mother of God, and St. George have provided a 
passage, I know not where." When, seventy years later, Henry V 
repeated the invasion and turned north toward Calais, it was 
again the line of the Somme that the French forces elected to 
defend, and with such effect that the English army marched 
along the southern bank some sixty or seventy miles, from near 
the sea to a point between Peronne and Ham, before finding a 
crossing over the marshy barrier. In each case it was only 
through the treachery of a French peasant that a little-known 
passage, insufficiently guarded, was discovered to the English; 
in the first instance over shallows at low tide near the sea, in 
the second by a pathway through the marshes to a ford across 
the river. And just as Edward's passage of the Somme was 
the prelude to the English victory of Crecy, so Henry's passage 
of the same obstacle was the prelude to the English victory of 
Agincourt. 

In 1536 Henry of Nassau moved first on St. Quentin, then 
on Peronne, with the object of forcing the Somme barrier, which 
blocked the way to Paris. Philip II besieged St. Quentin in 
1557 with the same design of breaching the line of the Somme, 
but the barrier held him at bay long enough for the King of 
France to reconstitute his army on the Oise and prevent the 
advance on his capital. Near the end of the sixteenth century 
the Spaniards were fighting to force a passage at Amiens. The 
names of St. Valery and Le Crotoy near the mouth of the Somme, 
of Abbeville, Amiens, Corbie, Peronne, Ham, and St. Quentin, 
places which guard the more important strategic points along 
the barrier, awaken the memories of many a siege and battle. 
The first-named suffered sixteen different sieges in four centuries, 
while Le Crotoy was taken, retaken, and burned twenty times 
within the same period. So also for Abbeville, Amiens, and the 
rest of the list one might catalogue abundant proofs that the 
line of the Somme looms large in military history. Even in the 
Franco-Prussian War, after the military power of France was 



STRATEGIC POSITION 91 

practically crushed and Paris was invested, the French Army 
of the North assembled behind the Somme barrier and disputed 
with the Germans for its possession until the capture of Amiens, 
Ham, and Peronne by the invaders sealed its fate. Thenceforth 
the Germans utilized it as a protective barrier against the rem- 
nants of the French army which still held the field farther north, 
strongly guarding every passage across the river and its marshes 
while their own ranks were being reinforced. The rectilinear 
lower portion of the Somme trench is continued southeastward 
by the marshy valley of the Avre. At its eastern end the Somrae- 
Avre line is protected by the town of Roye (Fig. 24), the impor- 
tance of which may be gauged from the fact that it sustained no 
less than thirteen sieges between the tenth and seventeenth 
centuries. 

Enough has been said to demonstrate the enormous military 
significance of the parallel valleys of Picardy and Artois. It 
should be noted that these valley trenches are most impressive 
in their lower courses, in part because the rivers cut deeper and 
have wider flood plains as they approach the sea, and in part 
also because the upland rises gradually to the northwest, 
especially in Artois. Add to this the further facts that the rising 
upland is more thoroughly dissected into rugged hills as the sea 
is approached and that it terminates toward the northeast in 
the formidable barrier of the Vimy Ridge escarpment (p. 101), 
and one can readily appreciate why invading armies might in 
general seek to avoid a terrain so difficult to cross, and to choose 
for their operations the more gently rolling plains farther east, 
where the shorter valleys have disappeared and where the Somme 
alone presents a barrier of primary importance. Now it is pre- 
cisely this latter region that is included in the modern Battlefield 
of the Somme. 

The significance of the position occupied by the Somme 
battlefield becomes clearer when one notes that to the eastward 
the land rises to merge in the rough country of the Ardennes 
Mountains. Between the difficult terrain to the west in Artois 
and Picardy, already described, and the difficult terrain of the 



92 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 



Ardennes Mountains and foothills to the east there is a low 
saddle or gap. This is in effect a natural gateway connecting 
the Paris region on the south with the low country of Flanders 
on the north; and, since the region of the Somme includes this 
gateway (Fig. 27) with parts of its northern and southern ap- 
proaches, one is not surprised to hear it spoken of by the French 
as the "Seuil de (threshold of) Vermandois." It was inevitable 
that this threshold or gateway should become the theater of 

a historic struggle be- 
tween the French on the 
one hand and, on the 
other, the powers con- 
trolling or seeking to con- 
trol Flanders. The great 
battles of the Somme 
during the World War 
were but episodes in the 
latest chapter of that 
long, historic struggle. 

But it is not merely in 
its military aspects that 
the strategic position of 
the Somme area becomes 
apparent. In its economic and cultural relations it has always 
been little influenced by the lands to the east and west, but 
profoundly affected by the products and peoples of French 
Flanders, Belgium, Holland, and even England to the north, 
and similarly by those of the Paris region to the south; for 
it was the gateway through which peoples and products moved 
from one of these regions to the other, and both areas eagerly 
looked to it for the rich harvests gathered from its fertile 
plain. In manufactures it was now the Paris district, now the 
Anglo-Flemish, which predominated in pushing the sale of its 
raw materials to the factories of Picardy and Artois or which 
invaded the towns and villages of the plain in the form of colonies 
of artisans or individual workmen who brought with them the 




Fig. 27— Location of the Somme battlefield 
at the natural gateway (between the Artois and 
Ardennes barriers) connecting Flanders with 
the Paris region. 



STRATEGIC POSITION 



93 



industries of their respective lands. The monotonous surface 
of the Somme country, interposing few obstacles to ready 
migration, favored economic penetration from both north arid 
south; and the quiet struggles for economic and cultural 
control which inevitably resulted from the geographic situa- 
tion were but preludes to those clashes of arms by which it 
was sought to crown the work of peaceful penetration by full 
political control. 

The strategic position of the Somme battlefield becomes even 
more apparent when one considers the great lines of movement 

across the region, the principal 
roads, canals, and railways. On 
first thought one might suppose 
that the nearness of the sea on 
the west would result in a princi- 
pal movement of people and 
products along east-west routes. 
The contrary is the fact. The 
great movement is north and 
south by roads and railways and 
by canals which occasionally 
must pierce the divides between 
different drainage basins by long 
tunnels. From the southwest, 
south, and southeast in France, 
from Great Britain on the northwest, Belgium and Holland on 
the north, and Germany on the northeast many of the more 
important transport lines converge to pass through the gateway 
between the barrier of Artois and the barrier of the Ardennes 
and hence to cross the historic Battlefield of the Somme. 

When the war of movement in the summer of 1914 changed 
to the war of position in the autumn and the battle lines extended 
southward from the dunes near Nieuport to the vicinity of 
Noyon, there to make a right-angled bend toward the east, 
special elements of strategic and tactical importance character- 
ized the region of the Somme. It was henceforth one of those 



„ ■ ■ ' ."' . oCambrai 


.- oDoullens 


'■••••" riM . ''••' ■'!'. * ''V>' 


■ ' C:} 


:* oAmiens ■ ■ ' ■• •* 


:-- . as. .. .. StOuentid 


■ £, , G» '• ' ■•' v -o - 


• -'••% y ,,-,> ■■■„•■ ?t 




• ' ' /? s./t^fsreo 



] Areas higherthan | | Areas la 
1 M00meters(328ft) ' ' ID0.meters(328ft.J 

Fig. 28 — Map showing the in- 
fluence of the shallow northwest- 
southeast folds on the Somme 
battlefield. The slightly upfolded 
belts (anticlines) remain on the 
average a little higher than the 
down-folded belts (synclines). 



94 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 




.5 c 



STRATEGIC POSITION 



95 




o 5 



3 

a 


V 

a 


a 

o 


0) 


w 






03 


a 


J 


~ 



96 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

sectors of the front against which the Germans, profiting by 
the advantage of interior lines, could hurl the overwhelming 
forces they had concentrated at some central point within the 
bend before the Allies could determine whether those forces 
were to be moved west, southwest, or south. It was a sector 
which tempted such an attack, since it offered large rewards 
for success. An advance down the Somme would not only cut 
the lines of communication connecting the northern battle 
front with the rest of France, but if pushed beyond Amiens would 
drive a wedge between the British and French armies, thus 
destroying their unity of action and throwing the British forces 
back upon the coast, where naval communications would form 
their only effective connection with their allies. On the other 
hand, a successful attack by the Allies in the Somme region 
would have the double advantage of compelling the enemy to 
retreat from the dangerous Noyon salient and of closing the 
strategic gateway into Flanders, thereby forcing the Germans 
to depend upon the more limited lines of transport and com- 
munication passing through the narrow valleys of the Ardennes 
Mountains. Thus the precise form of this battle front gave 
to the historic field of the Somme a temporary and local sig- 
nificance additional to that which it already possessed for 
broader strategic reasons. 

Surface Features of the Somme Battlefield 

The most striking characteristic of the Somme battlefield is 
its monotonous succession of low, rolling plain. It is true that 
the faint northwest-southeast folds, which have produced in 
the region immediately to the west a marked parallelism of 
valley trenches and upland strips, are continued into the area 
now under discussion. A layered map of the battlefield (Fig. 28) 
shows a suggestion of the northwest-southeast alignment of 
topography in the form of alternate belts of slightly higher 
and lower land — the higher belts representing up-folds, or 
anticlines, and the lower belts down-folds, or synclines. In 
the 1916 Battle of the Somme the French and British were 



SURFACE FEATURES 



97 



fighting to get from the lower land of the Somme syncline to 
the crest of the anticline next north and to force the Germans 
down into the next syncline beyond. But while slight varia- 
tions of altitude are of critical military importance, these un- 
dulations are so faint and the differences in average elevation 




Fig. 31 — German camouflage of a road across the Somme battlefield. Roads on 
the white chalk of the barren plain are readily visible for great distances; hence 
the necessity for concealing them by strips of this type, which prevent effective 
observation from enemy captive balloons or other points near the horizon. (French 
official photograph.) 



are so small that even the trained geographer would scarcely 
remark them. He would probably describe the Battlefield of 
the Somme as a plain of low relief, dissected by the branches 
of the Somme River and neighboring streams to a late-mature 
stage of erosion, in which valleys with gently sloping sides are 
separated by low, rounded hills or by remnants of the flat 
upland surface which descend gradually toward their margins to 
merge with the valley slopes (Fig. 29V The topography is not 



98 BATTLEFIELD OF THE S'OMME 

unlike that of the Great Plains in the vicinity of Bismarck, North 
Dakota (Fig. 30), which are there in a similar stage of erosion. 

THE LOW HILLS 

It is clear from what has just been said that there are two 
elements of prime importance in the topography of the Somme 
region: the low hills into which the plain has been dissected 
by stream erosion and the valleys of those streams. Let us 
first examine in some detail the form and character of the hills, 
to learn in what way they must have affected the military 
operations, after which we will turn our attention to the valleys. 

Perhaps the most obvious result of the low elevations and 
gentle slopes of the so-called hills is the facility they afford to 
travel in every direction. No hills are so high and few slopes 
are so steep as to offer any real obstruction to road making. 
The main highways, like those from Amiens, Roye, and St. 
Quentin to Cambrai, and from Ham to Bapaume, could be built 
in perfectly straight lines for long distances with a minimum 
of cutting and filling, while less important roads avoided the 
necessity of any grading by very moderate adjustments of course 
to the gentle contours of the land (Fig. 31). Parts of the plain 
are so little dissected that the upland surface remains practically 
level, and here even the secondary roads have straight courses for 
remarkably long distances. In the very heart of the Somme 
battlefield is such an undissected remnant of the level plain, 
known as the Santerre, across which the road from Amiens to 
St. Quentin, although one of the east-west roads and hence 
not of the first rank of importance, runs for nearly forty miles 
in a straight line. It was along this road that the Australians 
battered in the German front in August, 1918. 

In a region where road making is so easy the inhabitants 
find that it is cheaper to build new roads than it is to take 
roundabout courses over roads previously existing. As a con- 
sequence the plain is covered by an intricate network of national 
highways, departmental highways, good country roads, and 
passable lanes, such as is seldom found in other parts of France. 



THE LOW HILLS 99 

Railway construction is likewise comparatively easy and cheap, 
with the result that in addition to the main through-going rail- 
way lines there are numerous local railways which serve the 
multifarious needs of this rich agricultural region. Add to this 
the system of canals which follow the valley bottoms, where 
the slopes are uniform and the rivers easily controlled, and 
one can truthfully say that nowhere else is there a region more 
abundantly provided with cheap and easy means of rapid 
communication. The Battlefield of the Somme was ideally 
circumstanced for the transporting of those enormous quantities 
of men and materials which are essential to modern military 
operations of the first magnitude. 

In other respects the form of the terrain in much of the 
Somme battlefield favored repetition there of military opera- 
tions on an extensive scale. The general lack of marked topo- 
graphic inequalities which might give to one side overwhelming 
defensive advantages, such as existed in the plateau scarps 
east of Verdun and Nancy, and the absence of such strong and 
rugged relief as discouraged major operations in the Vosges 
and the Trentino, tempted first one army and then the other to 
seek victory by a sudden massing of men, or by an unexpected 
concentration of fire, or by the use of novel methods of warfare, 
under conditions which might reasonably be considered as equal 
except for the advantage to be gained by the element of surprise. 
When the tank became an important weapon of offense, it was 
evident that, whereas it might not be utilized to the best ad- 
vantage on the marshy soil of Flanders nor on the steep, forested 
slopes of the Vosges, the open, gently rolling plain of the Somme 
region lent itself admirably to the new method of attack. Hence 
it was here that tanks were first employed in battle (Battle of 
the Somme, 1916) and here that they won their most striking 
victory (Battle of Cambrai, 1917). The flat uplands and gentle 
valley slopes which invited armies to move at will in every 
direction also invited the French farmer to clear the forests 
of old and to extract from the soil abundant harvests; and 
armies, which fight on their stomachs, saw in the productive 



ioo BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

region of the Somme a battlefield where their stomachs could 
always be full. In a score of ways Nature had so fashioned 
the plain of the Somme as to make of it an ideal stage upon 
which the drama of war should be enacted. 

There is, however, one element of a natural fortification very 
noticeable in many parts of the Somme battlefield. In defend- 
ing important positions by artificial works the military engineer 
has often constructed low earth ridges or embankments called 
rideau (French for "screen" or "curtain"). Now, the hill and 
valley slopes of the chalk country are often interrupted by a 
series of terraces or ridges, sometimes faint and irregular, 
sometimes from 5 to 25 feet high (or even more) on their steep, 
downhill sides, and so closely spaced as to turn the slope into 
a giant stairway. These natural rideaux, as the French term 
the terraces, appear to be due in part to long-continued cultiva- 
tion of the slopes, during which the soil has for centuries been 
worked down toward the lower part of each cultivated strip, and 
in part, especially in case of the higher ones, to fractures in the 
chalk. 2 To prevent the encroachment of higher on lower fields 
the crests of the rideaux were often required, by custom or by 
law, to be left uncultivated. Thus, with their steep slopes and 
crests covered with bushes, trees, and stones cleared from the 
fields, they form natural defensive positions of considerable 
value. 

The northern termination of the Somme type of topography, 
where it gives place to the low, marshy plain of Flanders, is 
strikingly abrupt. Northwest of Arras, in particular, there is 
no transition zone from the rolling chalk upland to the flat clay 
marshland below. Instead, one of the northwest-southeast 
trending fault lines described on page 88 cuts across this part 
of the country, and the area to the northeast has been dropped 
downward so as to bring the sand and clay formations of 
Flanders opposite the chalk. As we should expect, erosion has 
washed away the sand and clay to produce a broad lowland, 

5 Albert Demangeon: La Picardie et les regions voisines — Artois, Cambresis, 
Beauvaisis. Paris, 1905, p. 44. 



THE LOW HILLS 



IOI 



while the more resistant chalk has merely been dissected into 
rolling hills and valleys (Fig. 32). 

Vimy Ridge 

The combined result of the faulting or breaking of the rocks, 
plus the later erosion, has been to produce a topographic feature 
of the highest military importance known as Vimy Ridge. A 
traveler advancing northeastward toward the crest of the ridge 
finds that the country rises very gradually as he proceeds. 



ArtoiS 



*-sw 




y Y2x 1:5 






J^artL-Lr-L 




Flanders 

,- S/Lnd and C/oys U E ■* 


J^J^^~7~^^^::~^~~^i~=^ 






-t,LV^/ 








>tz 


t~i — '—t— l^n — ,ii 1 



Fig. 32 — Eroded fault cliff forming the steep northeast face of Vimy 
Ridge and separating the rolling chalk upland of Artois from the fiat 
clay plain of Flanders. 



Indeed, so gentle is the ascent that he might fail to give it par- 
ticular notice, unless he turns and looks back. Then he cannot 
fail to realize that he is rising to an elevation which gives him 
a commanding view westward to the ruins of Mont St. Eloi 
and beyond (Fig. 33) and southward far past the towers of 
Arras. Continuing on his way, he reaches the crest. Instantly 
there bursts upon his vision a magnificent panorama of the 
Flanders plain (Fig. 35). The northeastern side of the ridge, 
the "fault scarp," as the geologist would call it, is steep, the 
ground dropping abruptly from the traveler's feet to the edge 
of the plain below. To the northwest, beyond the Souchez 
River, the ridge is somewhat higher, forming the heights of 
Notre Dame de Lorette; to the southeast it sinks lower and dies 
away in the plain of Arras. But toward the northeast nothing 
blocks the vision until the eye faintly glimpses on the horizon 
the dim outlines of Mont Kemmel far away in Belgium (Fig. 36). 



102 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 




THE LOW HILLS 



103 




io4 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 




STRUCTURE OF THE HILLS 105 

It is not difficult to understand the great military value of 
Vimy Ridge. So long as the German trenches lay on the gentle 
southwestern slope of the ridge, German observation posts 
commanded an extended view behind the Allied lines (Fig. 33). 
They possessed the inestimable advantage of direct control of 
artillery fire, and a surprise attack by the Allies was difficult 
to prepare when roads and railways were under continuous 
observation and subject to instant and accurate bombardment. 
The Allies, on the other hand, from their trenches on the north- 
eastern slope, had all direct observation cut off by the rising 
crest immediately in front (Fig. 34). The Germans could 
maneuver at will over a broad stretch of the Flanders plain 
beyond the ridge, providing the weather or their own airmen 
kept the aerial eyes of the Allied armies partly or wholly closed. 
Not until the Allies should drive the Germans beyond the crest 
would the situation be reversed and the Allies enjoy the topo- 
graphic advantages, the Germans suffer the topographic dis- 
advantages, inherent in the Vimy Ridge position. To make 
an advance of but a few hundred yards the Allied commanders 
in a series of terrific battles sacrificed their men literally by the 
tens of thousands. Let the reader compare Figures 34 and 35 
and he will see that the sacrifice was justified; for the gain is to 
be measured not in linear yards of advance, but in the increased 
depth and breadth of observation behind the enemy's lines. 

GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE HILLS 

In a war of movement it is the surface forms of the land 
alone which play a principal r61e in the military operations. 
But in a war of position, where the opposing armies "dig in" 
and for long periods remain rooted to a given piece of ground, 
the character and structure of the soil and rocks beneath the 
surface exercise a profound influence upon the condition of the 
armies and the nature of the fighting. 

Throughout the entire area now under discussion there ex- 
tends a layer of chalk (Fig. 37) practically horizontal and so 
thick that ordinarily its bottom is neither exposed in the deepest 



io6 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 




Fig. 36 — Block diagram of the Mont Kemmel-Vimy Ri 



STRUCTURE OF THE HILLS 



107 




NEUVE(£GLISE 0*ESS1NES 




iKgTARMENTIERES 



LA BASSEE 



.:-:s..-' 



"^^.'^SOU CH E Z "^ 




eft Vc^feL? -~, ' ~-<B . ~P~~-. ^ R 'D<ss 







S.H.K. 



q, showing the salient features of the terrain. 



108 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

valley nor reached by the deepest well. We may regard this 
as the basal rock of the region so far as we are concerned. Upon 
it rests a horizontal layer of impure clay, full of flint nodules 
or fragments. Since the underlying chalk contains flint nodules 
in abundance, and since the clay is of that composition which 
should be produced by decay of the chalk, there can be no doubt 
that this second formation is in reality the result of surface 
decomposition of the basal rock. Next above the clay with 
flints comes a horizontal layer of fine-grained sandy material 
known as loess, which may be a wind-blown deposit, but the 



Fig. 37 — Typical hill and valley section in the Somme battlefield, 
showing normal soil and rock succession, which gives an alternation of 
pervious and impervious beds of much consequence in trench warfare. 

origin of which is just as much in doubt as is the origin of the 
loess'deposits found along many of our rivers in the Mississippi 
valley. Finally, capping the series, is a deposit of clayey sand 
called loam, similar to the loam soils found abundantly in many 
parts of the United States. The usual relation of these layers 
of rock and soil to each other is shown in Figure 37. 

The man who fought on the Battlefield of the Somme became 
very familiar with these four rock types and found that each 
had a peculiar character of its own which affected his living, 
his marching, and his fighting. Even when he knew nothing 
of their names and their geological structure and little of their 
areal distribution, he knew much of the kind of life they gave 
him in trenches and dugouts and of the kinds of surfaces they 
gave him to fight over. Had his officers known as much about 
the effect of these rocks and soils on military operations in the 
beginning of the war as some of them did at its close, his life 
in the trenches would have been easier, and fewer of his fellows 



STRUCTURE OF THE HILLS 



109 



would have died there. No commander in modern warfare can 
fully understand his battles unless he fully knows his battle- 
fields below, as well as on, the surface. 

In considering how the chalk, clay, loess, and loam left their 
indelible stamp upon the character of the Somme campaigns, 
we must first note how the different types are exposed at the 




Fig. 38 — Geological map of a portion of the Somme battlefield north 
of Amiens, showing the loam and loess on the hilltops and divides, the 
chalk in the valleys, and the clay with flints on intermediate slopes. Both 
the loess and the clay with flints are frequently missing from their normal 
positions. (Amiens sheet, geological map of France, 1:80,000.) 

1, loam and other deposits washed into the ravines; 2, loam and loess 
covering the uplands; 3, loess or sandy beds; 4, clay with flints; 5, chalk. 



surface (Fig. 37). As might be expected, the chalk, being the 
lowest of the four, is most frequently exposed in the valleys, 
where streams have cut down into it, or on the valley walls, 
where erosion has washed away the overlying beds. The loam, 
being the uppermost layer, naturally forms the hilltops or up- 
land surface of the plain. The two intermediate beds, the loess 
and the clay with flints, must therefore outcrop on the gentle 
intermediate slopes or in the bottom of ravines which are not 



no BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

deep enough to cut into the chalk. A detailed geological map 
showing the actual surface distribution of each formation in a 
part of the region badly dissected by streams (Fig. 38) will 
therefore appear somewhat complicated despite the simple 
horizontal structure of the beds, for each valley and its branches 
and each hill and its spurs will show the several different forma- 
tions exposed on its slopes at different levels. The apparent 
complication is heightened by the fact that the loess is often 
missing from its place, leaving the loam to lie upon the clay 
formation; or both loess and clay may be wanting, when 
the loam lies directly upon the chalk. Sometimes the loam is 
washed down the slopes to bury and conceal exposures of the 
lower formations; and frequently the chalk of the valley bottoms 
is hidden by an accumulation of river-borne alluvium or by 
marsh deposits. In reality the relations are usually quite simple, 
and , as all variations from the normal arrangement of the beds 
are easily recognized and understood when seen in the field, they 
need receive no further consideration here. It will be sufficient for 
our purpose if we note the effects of each formation upon the mili- 
tary operations, when it occurs in the typical hill or valley section 

as shown in Figure 37. 

The Chalk 

The chalk is so uniform in character wherever encountered 
that it gives to the whole plain of the Somme a unity of aspect 
that is very pronounced. Its presence is usually revealed by 
white patches exposed on hill or valley slopes, which give rise 
to the frequent repetition of the expression "white" in the place 
names of this part of France (Blanche Tache, Blancfosse, Blanc 
Nez, Blanc Mont). Where Nature left the chalk covered with 
but a thin coating of loam, loess, or clay, trenches and shell 
holes inevitably brought the fresh rock to the surface to form 
glaring white lines or patches in the landscape (Fig. 34). 
In the vicinity of Amiens the chalk over broad areas is only 
concealed by a very thin cover of soil and vegetation, and when 
in the spring of 19 18 the British built a vast complex of trenches 
about the city to check a possible second German attempt at 



STRUCTURE OF THE HILLS in 

driving a wedge to the sea between the French and British 
armies, the magnitude of the defensive works was revealed to 
the German commanders by an imposing network of snowy 
ridges which nothing could camouflage. 

It is because the chalk breaks and crumbles readily under 
the action of the weather and dissolves easily in rain water 
charged with carbonic acid that nowhere in the plain of the 
Somme do we find flat-topped plateaus or mesas sharply bounded 
by steep walls or cliffs such as characterize the landscape of 
the Verdun region (Fig. 88) but, instead, those rounded, gentle, 
monotonous slopes which we have already described. Only 
where recently and rapidly undercut, as by the lateral erosion 
of some meandering river, does the chalk stand up in really 
steep cliffs. We shall see later that the meanders of the Somme 
between Peronne and Amiens have produced some such cliffs, 
which acquired tactical significance in the Somme battles. 

There are two features of the Somme battlefield which quickly 
impress themselves upon the observer and which materially 
affected the character of the fighting. One of these is the generally 
arid aspect of the landscape; the second is the marked con- 
centration of the population in compact villages and towns, 
separated by broad stretches of open country in which isolated 
farmhouses or other structures are seldom visible. The transi- 
tion from the deserted, arid plain to the crowded community 
is sharp and striking. Curiously enough, both of these char- 
acteristic features of the Somme region are due to the same 
geological peculiarity of the chalk. The rock is so extensively 
fissured that the rain which falls upon it, entering the vast 
network of crevices, quickly descends to depths so great that 
neither the roots of vegetation nor the shallower valleys can 
reach the level where the water comes to rest. Hence the arid 
appearance of the country, especially where the chalk forms 
the surface rock — an appearance which is accentuated by the 
removal of most of the forest cover, not merely from the chalk 
areas, but also from those belts where overlying deposits of 
loam or clay temporarily retain a portion of the rainfall near 



ii2 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

the surface. Hence, also, the abundance of dry valleys, which 
we shall later have occasion to consider more fully. 

The concentration of the population in compact communities 
is equally explained by the fissured character of the chalk. 
The population must have water, and, since the fissures permit 
the water to descend to depths varying from 50 to 300 feet or 
more throughout much of the Somme region, deep wells must 
be sunk to obtain the desired supplies. But the cost of such a 
well is too great for the individual peasant. Only the rich can 
afford private wells. For the rest the wells must be the joint 
property of the community, many persons contributing to the 
cost and enjoying the benefits of each one. And, since the 
transport of water to any great distance from the communal 
well is a heavy burden, all the peasants seek to build their 
homes close about the particular well upon which they depend. 
Thus are explained the two strongly contrasted but closely 
associated types of culture (Fig. 12) which give rise to two 
equally contrasted types of defensive operations in the Somme 
campaigns: the open country of unobstructed vision and broad 
fields of fire, where lines of trenches alone could afford protec- 
tion to the defense; and the dense clusters of houses, whose 
walls and cellars formed veritable forts which became the strong 
points of the whole defensive system. 

Unlike limestone, the chalk does not contain any considerable 
number of natural subterranean caverns. But the rock is 
easily quarried, with the result that extensive artificial excava- 
tions are found under many of the towns and villages. These 
added greatly to the tactical strength of the battle front, pro- 
viding secure refuge for large bodies of troops during heavy 
bombardments and hidden points from which machine-gun 
detachments could issue to sweep with murderous fire the lines 
of attacking forces. In preparation for the Battle of Arras in 
April, 1917, the great cellars and caverns under the town were 
connected by a series of tunnels driven for that purpose, and 
sufficient underground space thus provided for three infantry 
divisions with their headquarters, dressing stations, and other 



STRUCTURE OF THE HILLS 113 

facilities. From these subterranean chambers there issued to 
the attack parts of two British army corps, which thereby 
escaped the slaughter awaiting them on their anticipated exit 
from the narrow streets of Arras, kept under accurate and 
deadly fire by the German artillery. One of the strongest 
points which long resisted British attacks in the 191 6 Battle 
of the Somme was Beaumont-Hamel, 15 miles southwest of 
Arras, the secret of its resistance lying mainly in the extensive 
quarries and underground excavations for which it was noted. 

The Clay -and- Flint Formation 

The upper surface of the chalk is usually quite irregular, owing 
to the uneven progress of solution and decomposition, which 
proceeds from above downward. It is upon this irregular 
surface that the residual clay filled with flints, the decomposition 
product of the chalk, is found when the normal succession of 
beds is complete. As might be expected, the thickness of such 
a deposit is quite variable — from a few feet to as much as 20 
or 30 feet, the thicker deposits commonly being restricted to 
the belts of higher country (Fig. 28). On the other hand, the 
deposit is often entirely missing over broad areas, especially 
in the shallow down-warp, or syncline, along which the Avre and 
lower Somme valleys take their northwest course to the sea. 

In whatever phase the clay-and-flint formation manifests its 
presence, it gives to the landscape an appearance notably differ- 
ent from that developed on the chalk. Usually the clay is 
present in sufficient quantity to prevent the ready escape of 
water, thus giving a cold and wet soil which is not easily culti- 
vated. Sugar beet culture, the capital industry of the Somme 
region, especially avoids this formation, not only because of 
the clay soil, but also because the flint nodules cause bifurcation 
of the beet roots. It follows that trees are more apt to be left 
growing on this unfriendly soil; and one not infrequently sees 
a hill whose treeless lower slopes on the arid chalk and treeless 
summit on the much cultivated loam and loess are separated 
by a girdle of trees growing on the more humid intermediate 



114 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

clay-and-flint formation. Villages on this formation are apt 
to boast numerous shade trees among the houses and larger 
groves in the outskirts, although an effort may have been made 
to clear and cultivate the rest of the country. In earlier days 
marshes were interspersed with the woodland, and even today 
unimproved roads through the remaining groves are apt to be 
muddy and at times almost impassable. Fortunately the clay- 
and-flint formation, which gives a landscape contrasting so 
strongly with that which characterizes either the chalk or the 
loess and loam, covers but relatively small portions of the 
Somme battlefield. Nevertheless it made itself felt as an un- 
pleasant factor in the warfare of position in this region. East of 
Albert the Fricourt Wood, Mametz Wood, Railway Copse, the 
two Bazentin Woods, Bernafy Woods, Trones Woods, and others 
whose names are forever linked with memories of some of the 
bloodiest struggles in the 1916 Battle of the Somme, are partially 
or wholly rooted in the unfriendly clay-and-flint soil. Had this 
formation not been present on the battlefield, fewer men would 
have had to be sacrificed in the hard task of clearing enemy 
troops from peculiarly difficult forest positions. 

The Loess and Loam Formations 

The two uppermost formations, the loess and the loam, are 
frequently classed as one under the French name limon, because 
they have certain characters in common and because some- 
times, especially where neither is strongly developed, it may be 
quite impossible to separate them. Indeed the limon formation 
as a whole is quite complex, comprising seven different beds, 
of which two are gravel layers; but in the Somme region the 
loess and the loam are usually the only members of the series 
present over appreciable areas, and they alone need receive our 
attention. Together they constitute a fine-grained covering 
deposit on the hilltops and level uplands, or "plateaus," which 
reaches thicknesses of 25 to 30 feet or more in the east but thins 
out towards the west to 15 feet, 10 feet, and even less. It is 
the typical hilltop deposit, whether the hills be high or low; 



STRUCTURE OF THE HILLS 115 

but of course it is not wholly absent in the valleys, since rain 
and streams readily wash some of the material from the uplands 
down into the depressions, there to constitute much of the 
valley alluvium. On little dissected, broad, flat uplands, where 
washing has been at a minimum, the deposit is preserved in 
the greatest thickness. The broad and level plain of the San- 
terre southeast of Amiens, across which the British launched the 
great offensive of August 8, 191 8, is so heavily coated with loess 
and loam that the underlying chalk and clay-flint formations are 
completely concealed over extensive areas. 

Where typically developed the loess is light yellow or light 
gray in color, very fine-grained, and crumbles to a fine powder 
in the hand. It is sufficiently porous to permit the ready passage 
of water and thus ranks with the chalk as a pervious formation. 
The loam is more of a reddish brown and contains a considerable 
proportion of clayey matter. Like the loess it is fine-grained, 
easily cultivated, and comparatively fertile. Its fertility has 
been artificially enhanced by the addition, throughout long 
periods, of certain elements lacking in its natural state. Be- 
cause the loam is the uppermost bed of the series it is exposed 
over a greater area than any of the other three formations. It 
and the chalk determine the character of the Somme region as 
a whole, the chalk forming most of the surface in the valleys, 
the loam most of the upland surface. The intermediate clay- 
flint formation and the loess show in limited areas on inter- 
mediate slopes. 

The clay content of the loam, while not so great as in the clay- 
and-flint formation, is sufficient to render it comparatively 
impervious. As a result natural roads on the loam are so apt 
to be boggy in rainy seasons that the peasants in some sections 
have the proverb: "Good soil, bad roads." 3 If the loam is very 
thick, or if it rests directly on the clay-and-flint formation, the 
unimproved roads may become almost impassable, while the 
soil is then so cold and wet that its agricultural value is appre- 
ciably reduced. At the battle of Agincourt it was the loam 

3 Demangeon, La Picardie, p. 83. 



n6 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

surface of the plateau, soaked by the rain of the previous night 
and tramped into a bog by the feet of 60,000 men and their 
horses, into which the French, heavily weighted with their 
armor, sank so deeply that they could scarcely move, while 
the more lightly equipped English made good use of their ad- 
vantage. "Artillery in such a sea of mud could not be brought 
into position on either side." 4 In the Franco-Prussian War the 
attack of the Germans on Villers-Bretonneux was materially 
crippled by the fact that their cannon, although drawn by six 
horses, could be moved only with the greatest difficulty in the 
loam of the plateau, then soaked by successive rains, and by 
the further fact that many of their shells failed to explode 
when striking in the mud. In the World War of 1914-1918 
the unfavorable character of the loam continued to exercise 
its baleful influence, now to the disadvantage of one side, 
now to the disadvantage of the other. 

Where the loam is thin and rests upon the pervious loess or 
chalk, under-drainage takes place with sufficient rapidity to 
eliminate the disadvantageous features mentioned above. Then 
one finds both good soil and good roads. Indeed, it is the ex- 
tensive areas of good loam soil in the Somme region which 
from time immemorial have attracted to this plain one of the most 
numerous agricultural populations of France, led to the almost 
complete deforestation of the region, made necessary the con- 
struction of numerous roads and railways, induced the building 
of villages on the upland where water is difficult of access and 
costly to secure, raised the price of lands to a high figure, and 
yielded harvests so rich that poorer lands to the north and 
south have eagerly looked to it for a portion of their foodstuffs. 
It is the loam which is responsible for the fact that in the Somme 
region it is, except in wet weather, easy to move, and always 
easy to support, a great army. 

In the more arid parts of the Somme upland continued traffic 
along the unmetaled roads pulverizes the chalk, loess, and to 

4 J. W. Fortescue: A History of the British Army, 7 vols, to date, London, 1899- 
1912; reference in Vol. 1, p. 60. 



STRUCTURE OF THE HILLS 117 

some extent the loam; and, when the dust is removed by winds 
or rain wash, or by that primitive manner of road mending which 
consists in scraping away the loose debris until firmer soil is 
reached, the surface of the roadway is progressively lowered 
until it forms the bottom of a narrow, steep-sided trench. 
These sunken roadways are sometimes 10 to 20 feet deep 
below the enclosing banks and constitute military obstacles of 
which both sides made excellent use. Some of the most for- 
midable German strongholds southeast of Arras encountered 
by the British in their advance of April, 191 7, derived their 
strength from a series of sunken roads in that region which had 
been abundantly fortified by numerous German machine-gun 
detachments. 

Relation of Geological Structure to Trench and Dugout Locations 

One effect of the increasing power of heavy artillery fire is 
to compel opposing armies to dig ever more deeply into the 
earth in search of protection. Shallow trenches are deepened, 
and dugouts near the surface give place to elaborate underground 
chambers reached by long descending flights of stairs. Extensive 
galleries and tunnels are run for the purpose of sheltering large 
bodies of troops assembling for an attack, or to place and ex- 
plode mines under the enemy's trenches. It is evident that the 
geological formation of some battlefields, consisting of well- 
drained pervious rocks, may be highly favorable to such military 
engineering works; whereas in other battlefields, underlain by 
strata saturated with water which cannot drain off, the con- 
struction of tunnels and dugouts and even the digging of deep 
trenches may be practically impossible. The Somme battlefield 
falls neither in the one class nor the other, for we have already 
seen that it is composed of both pervious and impervious forma- 
tions in alternating layers. Trenches, dugouts, and tunnels will 
be dry and habitable if excavated in the right formation; but 
if ignorance of the geological structure of the battlefield leads 
to excavations in the wrong formations, an army may find 
the waters beneath the earth more dangerous than the fire 



n8 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 



above. In a series of defensive works located on a hill slope in 
the Somme region (Fig. 39), a trench (No. 1) which is dug 
wholly in the relatively impervious loam will accumulate water, 
especially if the loam is of considerable thickness above the 
loess. But a trench (No. 2) located in such manner as to cut 
through into the underlying loess, or one (No. 4) located wholly 
in that pervious bed, will be dry, since water entering such 
trenches will drain off into the pervious formation. Trenches 
(Nos. 3 and 5) whose bottoms reach through the loess into 




Fig. 39 — Geological cross-section of a typical hill in the Somme battlefield, 
showing possible locations of trenches, dugouts, tunnels, and munition bunkers in 
the different formations. Odd numbers show poor locations, even numbers good 
locations as regards rock structure and underground drainage. (Tactical considera- 
tions are ignored in order to condense many features within convenient space.) 



the impervious clay-and-flint layer, or which are cut wholly 
in that layer, will hold water so effectually as to make their 
occupation extremely trying to the men; but if a trench (No. 6) 
in the clay cuts through into the pervious chalk the water will 
quickly drain away. Trenches cut only in the chalk (No. 8) 
will likewise be dry. 

A dugout (No. 7) excavated wholly in the loess but with its 
bottom close to the contact of the underlying clay will be very 
wet, because the flow of underground water is at a maximum 
through the pervious beds just over the surface of the im- 
pervious formations; while a dugout (No. 9) wholly in the clay 
will also be wet, since, although the water drains in more slowly 
through the dense clay, it has no chance to escape. Dugouts 
(Nos. 10 and 12) wholly in the loess and chalk, and not close to 
contacts with underlying impervious beds, will be comparatively 
warm and dry. Dugout No. 1 1 is in a particularly bad location, 



STRUCTURE OF THE HILLS 119 

since waters flowing through the loess just over the clay contact 
will pour into the excavation from the upper walls and will be 
effectually impounded in the clay basin formed by the bottom 
of the excavation. Of the two tunnels No. 13 will give endless 
trouble for the same reason, whereas No. 14 will be dry. Even 
munitions bunkers may be located wrongly, as when they 
form basins in the impervious loam (No. 15) and hold the water 
from every rainfall; or correctly located (No. 16) so as to permit 
rainfall to drain off through the pervious loess. 

The hazards of war do not always permit an army to select 
the terrain on which it will fight. Nevertheless it is evident 
that in a region like the Somme the terrain on which battle is 
delivered may be intelligently or unintelligently utilized. Un- 
fortunately it happened during the great war that a higher 
officer, even a general of engineers, would sometimes remain 
blindly unaware of the vital relation of geological structure 
to the fighting power of his army, while his subordinates com- 
plained bitterly of the wasted effort and the unnecessary suffer- 
ing which such ignorance entailed. Dugouts were excavated 
and then found useless because it was impossible to drain them. 
Tunnels and mines driven at great cost of time and labor were 
abandoned before attaining their object, because a water- 
bearing zone above or below was cut into and the workmen 
"drowned out." Men suffered misery in trenches deep with 
mud and water. And all this when changes of but a few feet 
in surface location or differences of a few feet in depth of excava- 
tion, perfectly feasible from the tactical point of view, would 
have avoided the damage incurred. Even with no change of 
location, drainage could often be effected by sinking in the 
bottom of the wet trench or dugout a narrow subsidiary trench 
reaching into an underlying pervious formation, or by driving 
pits or wells down into that formation so as to let accumulated 
waters escape below. With the lapse of time and at the cost 
of bitter experience these facts became more and more widely 
known. Geologists were attached to the different armies, and 
the results of their studies were utilized by the army engineer. 



120 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

The Germans perfected an elaborate geological staff for service 
at the front, and documents captured by the Allies showed 
that this staff prepared and distributed instructions on the siting 
of trenches, dugouts, and other defense works which were 
abundantly illustrated by diagrams similar to Figure 39, show- 
ing correct and incorrect methods of excavating in the rock 
formations of the Somme region. Experience had demonstrated 
that in underground structure, as in surface topography, the 
terrain of a battlefield may offer advantages and disadvantages, 
which, when the first are properly capitalized and the second 
avoided, give to a resourceful commander that superiority over 
a less intelligent adversary which in an otherwise equal struggle 
might determine the issue of the conflict. 5 

Variable Effects of Artillery Fire 
The four different formations of the Somme battlefield react 
differently to artillery fire. A shell exploding in the mud 
formed by the loam after a heavy rain, or in the water-soaked 
clay, does less damage than one bursting on contact with the 
hard and brittle chalk, as the Germans first found to their cost 
in the battle of Villers-Bretonneux in 1870. On the other 
hand, a wet battlefield on the loam or clay may be drained if 
the shell craters penetrate into the underlying pervious loess 
or chalk, thus establishing numberless points for the downward 
escape of accumulated waters. Or shell holes in the loess may 
be turned into permanent ponds of water if they penetrate to 
the underlying clay. So important were these effects of the 
heavy bombardment that the army geologists were required 
to prepare in advance of an attack maps showing the kind of 
terrain which would exist after a proposed bombardment and 
over which infantry, tanks, and other arms would have to 
advance to their objectives. 

5 For an excellent discussion of the value of geological studies to military opera- 
tions, see A. H. Brooks: The Use of Geology on the Western Front, U. S. Geol. 
Survey Professional Paper 128, pp. 85-124, 1920. See also W. B. R. King: Geo- 
logical Work on the Western Front, Geogr. Journ., Vol. 54, 1010, PP- 201-221, and 
D. W. Johnson: The Role of the Earth Sciences in the War, from "The New World 
of Science," New York, 1920, pp. 177-217. 



STRUCTURE OF THE HILLS 121 

Tertiary Erosion Remnants 

In addition to the ordinary rounded hills and flat uplands 
of the Somme region, composed of the normal series of four 
formations described on preceding pages, there are within the 
area a few scattered remnants of another geological formation 
(Tertiary sands and clays) which acquire military importance 
because they rise above the general level of the plain or because 
they are forested. It is evident that the Tertiary formation 
once covered the whole region but that erosion has removed 
all of it except isolated patches which now remain as mute 
witnesses to the former condition of things. Sometimes the 
erosion remnants rise above the plain as buttes or mesas which 
effectively dominate the surrounding country, as in the south- 
eastern part of the Somme region, where groups of them repre- 
sent outliers of the Marne (or Parisian) plateau from which they 
have been separated by erosion. One of the groups is the so- 
called Noyon-Lassigny massif, comprising several tablelands 
northeast and southwest of the town of Noyon. With their com- 
manding view over surrounding plain and valleys, their precipi- 
tous rimming scarps and forest-covered uplands, these mesas 
constitute military obstacles of the first importance. Once solidly 
entrenched in the Noyon-Lassigny massif, the Germans were 
never expelled from it by direct frontal attacks. 

In other instances the Tertiary deposit rises to only a moderate 
elevation above the general level and is mainly noticeable because 
it supports an island of forest in the midst of the plain, where the 
trees find abundant moisture held in the sands by layers of clays. 
This is the case with the famous Bourlon Wood west of Cambrai, 
which commands a long stretch of the marshy valley of the 
Scheldt, and the Holnon Wood west of St. Quentin. Between 
St. Quentin and Cambrai there are other wooded knolls of the 
same origin, many of which have determined the location of 
villages because the layers of clay keep abundant supplies of 
good water close to the surface, where it is easily accessible. 
Both knolls and villages have played a significant role in military 
operations in this theater of war from very early times, and in 



122 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 



the present war were the occasion of some of the bloodiest 
conflicts occurring in the Somme area. 

THE VALLEYS 

While the rolling upland of the Somme battlefield is for the 
most part arid and treeless, the principal valleys are exactly 
the reverse. It would be difficult to imagine a more striking 
contrast than that which the valleys of the Somme and its 




Fig. 40 — The marshy valley of the Somme River near Amiens, one of the most 
important natural defensive barriers of France. From Roman times to the present 
it has again and again with its morasses blocked the passage of hostile armies. 



chief tributaries present to the general aspect of the landscape. 
Instead of aridity the broad valley floors show a maze of marshes, 
ponds, and sluggish streams. Countless springs pour their 
waters into the valleys from either side and come bubbling to 
the surface in the stream channels themselves. Reeds and 
grasses wave over the waters, affording cover to wild fowl; 
while far-spreading peat bogs offer treacherous footing to man 
and beast. Groves of poplars and other trees add their verdure 
to the ribbons of green winding amid barren hills of yellow and 
brown (Fig. 40). 

The secret of so striking a contrast is not difficult to dis- 
cover. The uplands are arid because the rain water quickly 



THE VALLEYS 123 

descends through the porous loess and chalk to considerable 
depths. The main valleys are humid because the accumulated 
waters pour forth in springs from the fissured chalk upon their 
level floors. In other words the deeper valleys are the paths 
by which the accumulating waters escape to the sea. And just 
as the peculiar character of the chalk is primarily responsible 
for much of the aridity of the upland, so also is it responsible 
for the marsh-covered peat bogs which clog the valley bottoms. 




Fig. 41 — Typical portion of the marshy valley of the Somme, showing 
interlacing stream channels, clairs of open water left by the extraction 
of peat, and the Somme Canal. 

In regions where rainfall runs off over the surface, carrying 
much surface soil downhill into the streams, rivers have floods 
in rainy seasons and low-water stages at other times, and the 
waters are heavily charged with sediment. Both the great 
ranges in stream volume and the abundance of sediment are 
unfavorable to the formation of peat deposits. Flood plains of 
alluvium are more apt to result; and, while these may be marshy 
in their natural condition, such marshes are easily turned into 
meadows, like those along the Oise which make La Fere and 
Chauny famous for their hay. But in the chalk region the 
regime of the rivers is very different. The rain sinks into the 
ground, traverses the porous loess, and moves slowly along 
the fissures in the chalk. Surface run-off and surface soil wash 



124 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

are greatly reduced, and the rivers are supplied by a great 
underground reservoir which feeds perennial springs with 
crystal clear water. Hence the Somme and its branches, flow- 
ing on faint gradients with fairly regular volumes, unusually 
free from floods and sediment, offer conditions highly favorable 
to the growth of aquatic plants and to their preservation in 
the form of peat. As this type of vegetation makes poor forage 
for stock and the peat bogs are not easily reclaimed, the river 
bottoms are apt long to remain almost impassable barriers. 

Changes in the Marshes 

The marshes of the Somme region have in fact been made 
more extensive by the work of man. 6 In order to secure water 
power for mills and to enclose fish ponds, many dams were 
built across the valleys in very early times, changing the rivers 
into series of small artificial lakes. Demangeon states that there 
were formerly 31 of these dams built to develop water power 
on that section of the Somme between St. Quentin and Sailly- 
Laurette east of Amiens, not counting smaller dams for fish 
ponds. The water being thus made more stagnant, conditions 
were unusually favorable to marsh growth and peat formation. 
In the eighteenth century, however, man began in earnest the 
reclamation of the marshes he had helped to increase and 
which his desire for hunting and fishing grounds had helped to 
preserve. A bad reputation attached to the swampy lands because 
of the fevers suffered by those who came to work near them, 
and called for a reduction of the cause of the evil. The extrac- 
tion of peat in great quantities for fuel, fertilizer, and other 
economic uses replaced in the aggregate a large total area with 
rectangular ponds of open water which the local population 
call clairs (Fig. 41). The construction of the Somme Canal and 
lateral ditches abolished the dams which interfered with the flow 
of the main river. In the vicinity of the larger towns, like 
Amiens and Peronne, peat bogs were transformed into market 
gardens, or hortillonnages, yielding rich harvests of vegetables 

6 Demangeon, La Picardie, p. 139. 



THE VALLEYS 125 

which were carried to town in quaint boats adapted to the 
narrow ditches and interlacing channels of the aquatic habitat 
in which they were the only means of transport. But Amiens 
with its "water market" and its islands protected by branching 
channels of the river was still called the "Venice of the North," 
while even today the area of uncultivated marshland and 
treacherous peat bog is large. 

The Marshes as Military Barriers 

The depth of the peat varies from 10 or 15 feet or less in the 
upper valley of the Somme to more than 30 feet in parts of the 
lower valley. In the valley of the Ancre northeast of Amiens the 
peat is 20 to 25 feet thick and consists of many beds alternating 
with layers of calcareous sand washed in from the surrounding 
chalk. The Hallue, Avre, Noye, Celle, and other tributaries of 
the Somme are likewise floored with peat deposits of appreciable 
thickness and constitute in each case a military obstacle of no 
mean importance. The abundant springs serve to keep the water 
from freezing, even in very cold weather, so that winter does 
not afford any guarantee that the barrier can be crossed on 
foot. The Somme continues to flow when the Seine farther 
south is covered with ice; and in 1870, when the Germans 
reached the Hallue in the expectation of crossing it on ice to 
attack the French, they were surprised to find the stream still 
running despite an extremely low atmospheric temperature. 

As we have seen on an earlier page, the Somme has through- 
out military history been the great marsh barrier of this part 
of France. Likewise the marshy valley of the Scheldt has 
repeatedly played an important military role. In 1793 the 
French under General Kilmaine entrenched themselves in the 
famous quadrilateral known as Caesar's Camp, having their 
front protected by the Scheldt from Cambrai to Bouchain, 
their left by the Sensee and its marshes, their right by the 
wooded heights of Bourlon, and their rear by the river Agache 
(Fig. 42). The passages over the Scheldt were closed and the 
valley floor was flooded. So formidable was the French posi- 



126 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 



tion that the Allies under Coburg were compelled to force its 
evacuation by a turning movement to the south. 7 In 1870 
the French Army of the North under General Faidherbe de- 
ployed along the line of the river Hallue, using the marshes and 
peat bogs of this valley as a protection against the Germans 
moving out eastward from Amiens. The Germans failed in 
their frontal attacks against the strong position and found it 
necessary to call up reinforcements and execute a turning 

movement before the in- 
ferior French forces 
could be dislodged. Sim- 
ilarly the Oise above and 
below La Fere and other 
marshy valleys of this 
part of France have 
served as defensive bar- 
riers at critical periods 
in French history; and in 
the great war so recently 
ended history in this 
respect repeated itself 
many times over. The 
"line of the Somme," the 
"line of the Oise," the "line of the Scheldt," and many like expres- 
sions appear again and again in the despatches of each campaign. 
A marked peculiarity of many valleys in the chalk region is 
their asymmetrical cross-section. The eastern or northeastern 
walls are notably steeper than the opposing sides. Demangeon 8 
explains this contrast on the theory that rain driven by south- 
westerly winds striking more directly against the eastern and 
northeastern valley walls, and the sun's rays falling more directly 
upon them, cause them to weather back with comparative 
rapidity into steep slopes; whereas the better protected, more 
humid, and less actively washed western or southwestern slopes 




Fig. 42 — The quadrilateral of Caesar's Camp, 
protected on three sides by marshy valleys and 
on the fourth by the wooded heights of Bourlon. 



7 Fortescue, Vol. 4, Part I, p. 119. 
s Demangeon, p. 42. 



THE VALLEYS 127 

are more slowly weathered and hence maintain a gentle inclina- 
tion. Whatever the proper explanation, the fact may be 
observed along many of the valleys, as for example the Selle 
and portions of the Ancre. It is evident that such asymmetry 
of valley slope might have significant consequences in military 
operations. When in 1870 the Germans advanced from Amiens 
to attack the French forces standing behind the marshy barrier 
of the Hallue, as related above, they were compelled to assault 
the steeper eastern wall of the valley under French fire and 
were repeatedly driven back by charges of the French infantry, 
which swept down the steep slopes upon them. The asymmetry 
of the valley walls, by giving to the French a distinct advantage, 
accounted in part for the failure of the Germans to dislodge the 
defenders by frontal attacks and for the fact that the German 
losses far exceeded those of the French. 

Dry Valleys 

It is only the deeper valley bottoms which receive the out-' 
flow of countless springs and are covered with marsh and peat 
deposits. The shallower valleys and small ravines are as arid 
as the upland below which they are entrenched (Fig. 43). This is 
because the water in the chalk finds ample opportunity for escape 
without rising to the level of the shallower depressions. Follow- 
ing an exceptionally wet season the ground-water level may 
rise high enough to cause some dry valleys to carry temporary 
streams; and an exceptionally dry period may cause the upper 
parts of wet valleys to lose their springs and streams for a time. 
Many French authorities agree that in addition to these tem- 
porary fluctuations there has long been in progress a steady 
lowering of the average ground-water level, owing to progressive 
solution of the chalk, by which the underground channels are 
widened; to progressive deforestation, with consequent increase 
of surface run-off; and to continual increase in the number of 
wells, especially those pumping large quantities of water for 
sugar refineries and other industrial establishments. There is 
historical evidence of this progressive lowering of the ground- 



128 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

water level, for springs like the big Saint Firmin spring at 
Roye have failed, and valleys formerly wet, like the upper 
Omignon northwest of St. Quentin, the upper Tortille, and 
certain branches of the Ancre, are now dry or nearly so. This 
means that some of the smaller valleys and ravines which 
were military obstacles of some significance fifty, a hundred, 
or several hundred years ago, are less formidable in character 
today, and that the students of a later century must in turn 
remember that what were marshy barriers in the World War 
of 1914-1918 may appear to them as quite dry valleys. 

It would be wrong to imagine that the dry valleys have no 
military significance. As places of concealment below the 
upland level, as channels directing the advance of troops and 
determining the location of lines of communication and supply, 
and in other respects, the dry valleys not only offer the same 
advantages as wet valleys of similar form but the further ad- 
vantage that all of the valley floor is available for use. The Ger- 
man tactics of "filtration" profited greatly by these dry valleys, 
sometimes with serious consequences to the Allied line, as in 
the 1 91 7 Battle of Cambrai, when the German penetration to 
the upper reaches of Ravine 22 south of the city caused the 
loss of much that had been gained by Byng's surprise attack 
with massed tanks. As military obstacles the dry valleys are 
of course far less formidable than those carrying permanent 
streams or containing marshes. But in wet weather some of 
the dry ravines of the Somme region, known as riots, tempo- 
rarily become as terrible as mountain torrents. The riot of 
Herclain east of Cambrai, in which St. Vaast, Inchy, and 
Maurois are located, is noted for the devastating floods which 
have repeatedly swept through it, carrying destruction to 
everything within reach of the turbulent waters. Such floods 
are most apt to occur when the ground is frozen and a sudden 
thaw deluges the surface with water which cannot sink into 
the hardened soil. In such a case even the Somme itself, as 
well as its main tributaries, may suffer from floods. Local 
floods in the riots are also produced in warmer seasons when 



THE VALLEYS 129 

the ground is hardened by drying and a heavy rain causes 
much surface run-off. In order to prevent the damage incident 
to these flooded riots, ditches are dug to lead off the excess 
waters or successive dams are built across the valley to check 
the rush of the torrent and to retain its waters in a series of 
reservoirs or ponds. The sudden appearance of a flood in one 
of these dry valleys is capable of working havoc with military 



Fig. 43 — Typical shallow, open ravine or dry valley in the chalk of the Somme 
battlefield just north of Bray-sur-Somme. 

forces and their equipment which may have taken refuge there, 
while forces expecting to cross the valley would find their plans 
seriously deranged. 

The Canals 

The valleys, both wet and dry, have been utilized in con- 
structing a series of canals across the Somme battlefield 
(PI. II). One of these, the Somme Canal, follows the valley 
of the Somme River to connect St. Quentin with the sea. It 
was designed to be the great trade route of this region; but 
because it runs in a general east-west direction, whereas physical 
geography ordained that the Somme region was to be a gate- 



130 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

way between the north and the south, all the great hopes en- 
tertained respecting its future were blasted. Today it is little 
more than a feeder for the north-south canals. Of these the Cro- 
zat-St. Quentin-Scheldt canal, connecting Chauny, St. Quentin, 
and Cambrai by utilizing parts of the Oise, Somme, and Scheldt 
valleys and certain of their tributaries, constitutes one of the 
most important trade routes in all France. The traffic over this 
water route, which not only brought the coal region of the north 
into touch with the industrial region of Paris, but also bore trade 
from as far south as Lyons to the ports of Dunkirk and Amster- 
dam, soon became so congested that another north-south canal 
was a pressing necessity. The Canal du Nord runs from Noyon 
in the Oise valley via Peronne to Arleux northwest of Cambrai, 
taking advantage of parts of the Somme valley, its tributary the 
Tortille, and a branch of the Sensee valley known as the Agache. 
As a second north-south waterway of capital importance it is 
destined to relieve the Crozat-St. Quentin-Scheldt system of some 
of its overburdening traffic. The Oise Canal follows the valley of 
the Oise River across the southeastern corner of the Scmme 
battlefield, and the courses of the Scarpe and Sensee in the 
northeast have in part been canalized. 

A canal forms an artificial moat in the bottom of the natural 
moat of the valley which contains it, and is a serious military 
obstacle (Fig. 44). The Somme Canal adds to the obstruction 
formed by the Somme River and thus increases the difficulties 
of armies moving north or south across this region. The lines 
of the Crozat-St. Quentin-Scheldt canal and of the Canal du 
Nord provide two north-south barriers of prime importance, 
especially where they traverse small valleys or dry ravines 
which otherwise might oppose little difficulty to the passage 
of troops. Only at one point, on the Somme-Scheldt divide 
between Bellicourt and Le Catelet, does the Crozat-St. Quentin 
canal pass underground for any considerable distance. There 
is a short tunnel at Le Tronquoy which pierces a minor divide 
within the Somme drainage basin; but at Bellicourt the canal 
disappears underground for a distance of more than three miles, 



STRATEGIC POINTS 



131 



and the surface of the broad divide is devoid of topographic 
obstacles. Here, then, is a strategic point where troops may 
pass the long north-south barrier without even seeing it. The 
Canal du Nord presents two such points: near Cachy east of 
Roye, where the Oise-Somme divide is pierced by a short tunnel; 
and near Bertincourt north of Peronne, where a longer tunnel 




Fig. 44 — The Oise Canal at Chauny, part of the Oise valley barrier. Note that 
the bridge has been destroyed and that material has been lost in attempting the 
passage. (French official photograph.) 

carries the canal through the Somme-Scheldt divide. The 
great military importance of these two north-south canal 
barriers, often of quadruple strength (valley, marsh, river, and 
canal) will be apparent from a reading of any detailed account 
of the Somme campaign. Both the Allied and Teutonic armies 
used them as principal lines of resistance. 

STRATEGIC POINTS ON THE SOMME BATTLEFIELD 

It is interesting to note to what a marked degree the strategic 
aspect of the valleys of the Somme region has affected the loca- 



132 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

tion and character of towns in the past. From Roman times 
Amiens has guarded one of the principal passages of the Somme 
barrier, at a point where a narrowing of the valley and the 
presence of several islands facilitated a crossing. On the other 
hand, advantage was early taken of the divided channels of the 
river and of the marshes to make of Amiens a fortress which 
was so well protected by natural obstacles that an enemy always 
found it most difficult to reduce. Peronne was first located 
on the left bank of the river, but at the time of the Norman 
invasion the inhabitants moved out into the marshes and 
there built for themselves a fortified town which acquired 
special significance because it defended an important passage 
of the river at the point where the latter turns sharply from a 
northerly to a westerly course. The natural barrier of the 
marshes was so effective a protection that the fortress was 
long deemed impregnable. Even in later wars the town, dom- 
inated on the north by the commanding plateau spur called 
Mont St. Quentin, has been considered of special military value, 
and in 1536, 1870, and twice during the recent war German 
guns belched fire from this stronghold on the Somme. 

Ham took advantage of a peninsula of the chalk upland which, 
projecting out into the Somme valley, so narrowed it as to make 
a place of easy crossing and which at the same time was so 
surrounded by marshes as to make a strong point for the de- 
fense of that passage. St. Quentin stands at the eastern end 
of the Somme barrier, where roads converge from all directions. 
It occupies a strong position on a peninsula of the chalk upland, 
protected on the east by the Somme marshes and on the south 
and west by a deep ravine. Roye guards the southeastern end 
of the rectilinear Somme-Avre depression, where passed a Roman 
road from Rheims to Amiens. Montdidier was first located in 
the valley of the Doms, but in the fifteenth century, when the 
wars of the Burgundians began, the inhabitants took refuge 
on a steep-sided spur of the chalk upland which was protected 
by the marshes of the Doms on the west and by deep ravines 
on the north and south. 



STRATEGIC POINTS 133 

La Fere has been, from earliest times, one of the chief northern 
defenses of the Paris region. Located on an island in the midst of 
marshes, with branches of the River Oise on all sides, it has well 
been called the type example of a fortress or natural citadel iso- 
lated in a marsh barrier. It guards one of the river gateways 
giving access through the Laon-Lassigny escarpment to the 
district of Paris. Cambrai, the center of many important con- 
verging roads, guards a passage over the marshy barrier of the 
Scheldt upon a spur of chalk upland protected by marshland on 
the west and north, and on the south by a ravine. In the marshes 
the river pursues an uncertain course, splitting into several 
branches which readily shift their positions or may easily be 
shifted by man. Doullens figured early in French history as a 
strong point guarding the eastern end of the natural trench of 
the Authie. Arras stands near the southeastern end of Vimy 
Ridge and was protected by the formidable marshes of the 
Scarpe. In early times its fortified walls formed a valuable con- 
necting link between the Canche and Authie valley barriers on 
the west and the Scarpe and Sensee marsh barriers on the east. 

Clearly the valleys and marshes of the Somme battlefield, 
through their effect on early military history, exerted a profound 
influence on the location of those cities and towns which were to 
figure most prominently in the Somme campaigns of 1914-1918. 



CHAPTER IV 

MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE BATTLEFIELD 
OF THE SOMME 

The Invasion of the Somme 

Such, then, is the country across which the tide of battle 
flowed and ebbed in the tragic years 1914-1918. In the latter 
part of August, 1914, the German First Army under Von Kluck, 
after swinging far to the west through Belgium, turned southwest 
through the "gateway of Vermandois" and debouched upon the 
open plain of the Somme battlefield. German detachments 
swept rapidly across the gently undulating surface, routed small 
French forces between Arras and Bapaume after a stiff fight, 
dispersed them again at Albert, and drove them to seek protec- 
tion behind the Somme barrier. 

The French Sixth Army (sometimes called the Army of the 
Somme) had meanwhile formed behind the line of the Somme 
eastward and southeastward from Amiens, while its left was 
covered by additional troops holding the Somme barrier west 
from Picquigny, 8 miles northwest of Amiens, to the sea. "The 
invaders were arrested for two days on the Somme between 
Amiens and Peronne, the Allies holding a strong position behind 
the marshes through which the river here flows." x But by 
August 30 the Germans in great numbers had crossed the barrier 
east and west of Ham, and August 31 Amiens fell into their 
hands. The line of the Somme had been forced, and the French 
Sixth Army now fell back on Paris, soon to play a vital role in 
the critical struggle on another battlefield — that of the Marne. 

In the meantime German hordes farther east had occupied 
Cambrai on August 26 without difficulty and violently attacked 

1 G. H. Perris: The Campaign of 1014 in France and Belgium, New York, ioi5, 
p. 269. 



THE INVASION 135 

the small British army in the vicinity of Le Cateau. The 
British forces, at that moment retreating from Mons, were in an 
extreme state of exhaustion; but, wrote their commander Sir 
John French, "I determined to make a great effort to continue 
the retreat until I could put some substantial obstacle, such as 
the Somme or the Oise, between my troops and the enemy." 2 
After a further defeat at Le Cateau the British fell back to the 
line of the Oise between Noyon and La Fere, where they paused 
for a few hours of rest on August 28 and 29, while the French 
Fifth Army on their right took up a defensive position behind 
the Oise from La Fere northeastward to a point beyond Guise. 
Although the Oise marshes form less of an obstacle than the peat 
bogs of the Somme, and Turenne in the campaign of 1653 had 
rejected the proposal to stand behind that stream in opposing 
the advance of the Spaniards, on the ground that it was impossi- 
ble long to defend the passages of such a river, 3 it was nevertheless 
a military barrier of real value. Under its protection the Fifth 
Army was now able to undertake the delicate maneuver of 
shifting the bulk of its forces from its right to its left wing, in 
preparation for a counterattack upon the Germans. This 
counterattack, known as the Battle of Guise-St. Quentin, was 
precipitated when the Fifth Army debouched from behind the 
line of the Oise between La Fere and Guise and attacked toward 
St. Quentin. About this time, however, the Germans attacked 
the weakened French right and succeeded in forcing the Oise 
barrier east of Guise. General Lanrezac had therefore to turn 
his attention to the task of restoring security to his right wing 
by driving the enemy back over the river, and the attack on 
St. Quentin hung fire. The British having meanwhile retreated 
from the Oise to a line farther south, and the Germans having 
pushed the French left wing back behind the barrier and cap- 
tured La Fere, the whole Fifth Army abandoned the line of the 
Oise and fell back August 30 to conform with the British retreat. 

2 Sir John French: Despatches: Mons; The Marne; The Aisne; Flanders, London, 
1914, p. 10. 

3 Napoleon Bonaparte: Memoirs of the History of France, Historical Miscel- 
anies, London, 1823, Vol. 3, p. 65. 



136 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

In less than a week the German wave had swept the Battle- 
field of the Somme clean of Allied troops. The onrush had been 
so overwhelming, and the necessity under which the Allies 
labored to deliver their main counterblow farther south was so 
imperative, that no natural defensive line in the Somme region 
could be held in sufficient strength to retard for long the German 
advance. Yet even under such conditions the physical features 
of this battlefield left their impress upon the brief campaign 
of a week. The swift enemy advance, the temporary check 
at the Somme, the assembling of the French Sixth Army behind 
that barrier, the retreat to the line of the Oise, the delicate 
maneuver of Lanrezac's Fifth Army, the preparation for and 
the vicissitudes of the Battle of Guise-St. Quentin, all are fully 
intelligible only when studied with a clear understanding of 
the stage upon which these events were enacted, and more 
particularly of the striking contrast between the rolling, open 
surface of the upland, so easy to traverse, and the broad, marshy 
floors of the Somme and Oise valleys, so difficult to cross. 

It is probable that the Oise barrier would have played a still 
more important role in the last days of August, 19 14, but for 
the failure of the British to support the operations on that 
line. Sir Douglas Haig had promised the aid of his artillery 
for the 29th and of his infantry for the evening of the 30th, 
subject to the approval of Field Marshal French, but was later 
compelled to withdraw this promise, saying that on account of in- 
structions received he was unable, to his great regret, to par- 
ticipate in the operation. This lack of unity in the face of the 
enemy, which was emphasized by the British Minister of War, 
Lord Kitchener, in his instructions to Field Marshal French to 
the effect that his command was entirely independent and never, 
in any case or in any sense, would he be under the orders of an 
Allied general, 4 was to deprive the Allied armies of the tactical 
and strategic value of many a natural barrier before a long series 
of disasters would teach them the folly of divided counsels in 

4 Joseph Mangin: Comment finit la guerre, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Vol. 56, 
1920, pp. 481-520, 721-762; Vol. 57, 1920, pp. 241-285, 481-537, 774-815; Vol. 
58, 1920, pp. 74-101; reference in Vol. 56, pp. 502, 506. 



THE INVASION 137 

the presence of a dangerous foe. The strength of Nature is no 
counterpoise to the weakness of man. 

Nevertheless, it is along the marshy barrier of the Oise that 
one must seek the first influence of topography upon the man- 
euvers which led to the victory of the Marne. We have already 
seen that it was under the protection of this barrier that the 
Battle of Guise-St. Quentin was prepared. As the Oise flows 
from northeast to southwest in this part of its course, the effect 
of the French Fifth Army in debouching from the barrier was 
to force the army of Von Kluck farther toward the west, thus 
tending to separate it from the other German armies marching 
southward on his left. Furthermore, the excellent lines of road, 
railway, and canal following the natural trench of the Oise 
in some measure constrained commanding officers of the 
German First Army to take advantage of the line of least 
resistance toward the southwest in moving different units of 
their forces. Von Kluck in his "March on Paris, 1914" (p. 76) 
reports that as late as August 28 he was under orders to "march 
west of the Oise towards the lower Seine," where a concentration 
of fresh Allied forces along the Seine barrier was considered by 
the German high command to be a possibility; but there can be 
little doubt that the causes mentioned above operated to force 
his army farther west than was safe. The result was that Von 
Kluck arrived upon the Battlefield of the Marne with a gap of 
many miles intervening between his army and the German 
Second Army on his left — a perilous gap imperfectly filled by 
German cavalry. We shall later see that the creation of this gap 
resulted in the defeat of the isolated German First Army in the 
Battle of the Ourcq, a defeat which involved all the German 
forces eastward to Verdun and made of the Battle of the Marne a 
brilliant Allied victory. 

When the German high command found its armies entangled 
in a dangerous struggle on the Marne battlefield, it faced the 
necessity of concentrating all its energy, first in an effort to meet 
the great Allied counterblow, and later to check .the Allied 
pursuit at the Aisne barrier. It accordingly drew in the German 



138 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

right wing by abandoning places occupied on the Somme battle- 
field during the advance on Paris. As a result we find the Somme 
region for a few days practically devoid of troops of both armies, 
for during the bitter struggle along the Aisne neither contestant 
could turn his eyes to the vacant spaces of the rolling plain. 

The Maneuver of the Somme 

Nevertheless the plain of the Somme was a valuable prize, and 
there could be no doubt but that the first to recover breath and 
assume the initiative would reach forth to seize it. Its rich 
fields offered life to the armies which should possess it. If the 
Germans could occupy it they might also control the Channel 
ports, threaten England more closely, and endanger the short 
lines of communication crossing the Channel to the British 
armies in France. Furthermore, the prolongation of the German 
line on the Aisne westward along the Avre-Somme valley to 
the sea would not merely give them a natural defensive barrier 
in place of an arbitrary and artificial front for their extended 
right wing, but would in addition give them a line about 40 per 
cent shorter than the one they actually secured from Noyon 
to the sea and at the same time prevent the formation of such a 
dangerous strategic salient as that with its apex near Noyon which 
so long threatened the security of the German armies in France. 
For the Germans merely to gain and hold the strong, short line of 
the Somme would thus of itself constitute a great German victory. 

On the other hand if the Allies could seize and hold the entire 
region of the Somme, retain control of the Channel ports, bend 
back the German right wing so as to deprive it of the protection 
of the Somme barrier, and impose upon the German front a 
dangerous salient, their victory would be incontestable. If in 
addition they could push the lengthening German right wing 
back to the line of the Oise the victory would be even more 
complete, for the Oise valley carried the chief line of supply of 
the German western armies, and to bring this line, including 
the vital railway junction at Tergnier, 3 miles west of La Fere, 
under Allied guns would spell disaster to the enemy. There 



THE SOMME MANEUVER 139 

could be no danger that the Allies would find their maneuver 
blocked by a firm German stand behind the Oise barrier, for that 
river makes so acute an angle with the Aisne that the resulting 
salient in the German line would be absolutely untenable. 

About the middle of September, while the struggle on the 
Aisne was still in full swing, began the contest for possession 
of the unoccupied Somrae region. In this struggle the Allies 
manifested the superior skill in maneuvering and, while failing 
to secure all they hoped for, won a victory of the first magni- 
tude. Joffre announced a "new plan," which was to attack and 
envelop the German right flank, pressing it back toward the 
line of the Oise. The German right was firmly established on 
the wooded Tertiary mesas of the Noyon massif at the southern 
margin of the Somme battlefield (see p. 121). This group of 
imposing highlands constituted for the Allies a formidable 
military obstacle and for the Germans a solid point d'appui upon 
which their front was to hinge throughout a large part of the 
war. After vain attempts on the part of the French to dis- 
lodge the enemy from this stronghold, a new French army 
under De Castelnau moved around the western side of the ob- 
stacle, advanced northward into the Somme battlefield, and 
faced eastward along a north-south line from Peronne to Las- 
signy (Fig. 24), with the double object of attacking toward the 
line of the Oise and the rail junction at Tergnier, while at the 
same time holding as much as possible of the Somme region, 
covering Amiens, and making secure the rail routes across the 
Somme plain to the Channel ports. The Germans promptly 
sought to checkmate this maneuver by breaking through to the 
west and driving the French clear of the Somme area. A violent 
combat raged from September 21 to the end of the month, the net 
result of which was that the French held fairly close to their 
north-south line but failed to reach the Oise and seize Tergnier. 
The Germans had escaped disaster but had failed to break the 
wall of steel which was stretching steadily northward to confine 
them within the fast forming Noyon salient and to bar them from 
the prizes they should have moved to seize many days earlier. 



140 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

The Germans were now fully alive to the peril of the Allied 
maneuver and sped troops northward and westward to turn 
back the growing left wing of the Allied armies. So effective 
was the German pressure that at one time the local command 
of one of the Allied flanking armies considered falling back on 
the line of the Somme. 5 But such an admission of defeat was 
refused, Foch was sent to the spot, and French and British 
troops were rushed northward to support and extend the Allied 
left wing and if possible to force back and envelop the German 
right. The great battle of maneuver thus shifted ever north- 
ward over the Somme plain, with clashes first in the Lassigny- 
Peronne sector; then in the region of Albert, where the Germans 
succeeded in establishing themselves in a strong position behind 
the marshy valley of the Ancre for a distance of five miles and 
along the crest of the arch (Fig. 45) east of that river; next about 
the formidable bastion of Arras, which remained to the French, 
while south of the town the contesting armies finally rested on 
their arms facing each other for a stretch of seven or eight miles 
along the small valley of the Crinchon, a stream less formidable 
than the Ancre but possessing a broad, flat valley floor bounded 
by walls in places fifty feet high; and still later, about October 
1, in the district of Lens, where the Germans with a keen appre- 
ciation of the great advantages conferred on the holder of Vimy 
Ridge seized and held that important topographic feature at 
the northern border of the Somme battlefield. The feverish 
contest in which each army sought to outflank the other came 
to an end only in mid-October when the two fronts had been 
extended across the Flanders plain to the sea near Nieuport. 

The historic struggle for position on the plain of the Somme 
during the latter half of September, 1914, might well be called 
the first great Battle of the Somme in the World War, had not 
usage decreed that the battle of 1916 should be known by that 
name. It ended in an Allied victory which in many respects 
was more far-reaching in its consequences than the first victory 
of the Marne. The Allies emerged from the contest with the 

5 Mangin, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Vol. 56, p. 514. 



THE SOMME MANEUVER 141 

short sea route to the Continent saved, with the Channel ports 
and their rail connections secure, and with at least half of the 
fertile plain of the Somme in their possession. The enemy had 
been forced to accept a front unprotected by natural topographic 
barriers save for short stretches along the Ancre, the Crinchon, 
and at Vimy Ridge, a front so long that in 1917 he would be 
forced to shorten it in order to economize man power, and of 
such a form that, while it would give him the advantage of 
interior lines, it must at the same time constantly threaten the 
bulk of his forces with irreparable disaster. The bloody battles 
for the Channel ports were attempts by the Germans to gain what 
had been lost by their failure to checkmate the Allies' maneuver 
and would undoubtedly have been followed by further efforts 
to open yet wider the Noyon salient, to shorten the German 
front in France, and to secure a position behind an unbroken 
natural topographic barrier. As has been suggested by General 
Berthaut, 6 the battle cry "Nach Calais!" might more correctly 
be rendered "Nach der Somme!" and the price paid by the Ger- 
mans in the unsuccessful bids for the Channel ports is a measure 
of the Allied victory in the Maneuver of the Somme. 

It is not necessary to follow in detail the local fluctuations 
of the battle front newly established across the plain of the 
Somme. Albert, protecting the southern end of the Ancre 
front; Peronne, guarding the critical angle of the River Somme 
where it turns sharply from a northerly to a westerly course, 
and where the valleys of the south-flowing Tortille and the west- 
flowing Cologne join and so prolong the valley barriers of the 
two segments of the Somme; and other important points changed 
hands more than once before equilibrium was established. In 
its final form the line of battle stretched across the plain from 
the solid pillar of the Noyon-Lassigny massif in the south to 
the equally solid pillar of Arras-Vimy Ridge in the north, with 
no strong topographic features determining its position except 
along the Ancre and Crinchon valleys and the crest of the arch 
east of the Ancre. Possession of each of the two supporting 

6 General Berthaut: De la Marne a la Mer du Nord, Paris, 1919, p. 87. 



142 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

pillars was shared by the two opposing forces. The Germans 
held the northeastern part of the Noyon massif, the French 
the southwestern part. Vimy Ridge and a short portion of its 
continuation as the ridge of Notre Dame de Lorette had been 
seized by the Germans; but Arras, with its protecting marshy 
valleys and underground labyrinth of quarries and cellars 
excavated in the chalk, was held by the French. Thus for each 
contestant it was necessary to dislodge the enemy from one 
or both of the terminal buttresses of his Somme line if anything 
more than a local victory was to be secured. 

We have already noted the failure of the French in frontal 
attacks against the German positions on the Noyon massif 
and their failure to flank the Germans out of those positions 
by the advance of De Castelnau's army. Early in October the 
Germans violently attacked the strong point of Arras, but, 
notwithstanding the fact that German troops were able to seize 
the heights of Vimy Ridge on the north and to reach the valley 
of the Crinchon on the south, Arras itself remained securely 
in French hands and projected like a bastion into the German 
lines. Later in October the French began the long struggle to 
wrest Vimy Ridge from the Germans, and bitter fighting con- 
tinued at intervals until May, 1915, with varying fortunes 
but no great changes in the positions of the combatants. Mean- 
while the Germans had dug themselves deeply into the gentle 
backslope of the ridge, adding to the natural topographic ad- 
vantages of the position a formidable network of trenches, 
caverns, and tunnels excavated in the chalk. Every effort was 
made to hold what the German high command rightly regarded 
as one of the strongest and most vital points in their whole battle 
line. The French attached equal value to the peculiar topog- 
raphy of Vimy Ridge, and Foch was now carefully and method- 
ically organizing a tremendous effort to capture it, rupture the 
German front, and drive the enemy northeastward over the 
Flanders plain. Could he succeed in this, the German line 
across the Somme plain, robbed of its northern support, must 
give way under Allied pressure. 



FIRST VI MY BATTLES 143 

The First Battle of Vimy Ridge 

The first of the great battles for Vimy Ridge, often called 
the Battle of Artois, began on May 9, 1915. For a month 
and a half there raged one of the bloodiest combats of the war. 
Twenty days were required for the single operation of taking 
the network of trenches known as the "Labyrinth." In the 
defense of the ridge the Germans engaged sixteen divisions, 
and with the aid of the natural advantages of their position 
were able to stop the French advance before it had reached the 
crest. The battle ended with the Germans still in possession 
of the Vimy buttress, although their hold upon it had been 
measurably weakened. 

The Second Battle of Vimy Ridge 

The second battle of Vimy Ridge began on September 25 of 
the same year, in connection with the British offensive at Loos, 
northwest of Lens, in the Flanders plain, and continued into 
October. Souchez was taken by the French in the violent 
struggle, and the crest of the northern part of the ridge finally 
attained after the Prussian Guard had been dislodged from an 
almost impregnable position. But the second great battle 
ended with the major portion of the crest still in German hands. 

During the months which followed the Germans repeatedly 
made determined efforts to regain a firmer grip upon the natural 
stronghold from which they had been partially dislodged. In 
April, 1916, the British took over the front in the Arras- Vimy 
sector, and on May 21 and June 2 the Germans recovered some 
terrain from their new antagonists in this region, during combats 
sufficiently important to rise above the general level of the end- 
less struggle which ever kept the chalk slopes of Vimy Ridge 
stained with blood. British counterattacks regained part of 
the lost ground, but other parts of no great strategic or tactical 
importance were left in German hands in order that offen- 
sive preparations which were in progress farther south might 
not at this time be weakened. 



144 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

The First Battle of the Somme 
A new operation of impressive magnitude was about to be 
launched in the center of the Somme plain. Here the Germans 
had devoted all their skill to the task of rendering impregnable 
a front traversing a rolling plain which offered them outstanding 
topographic advantages at only a few points. But even where 
natural advantages were equal between the two antagonists, 
superior ability in utilizing them could give to one side a line 
of superior strength. It cannot be doubted that the Germans, 
particularly in the early years of the war, usually showed greater 
skill in adapting their defensive organization to the surface 
form and underground structure of the battle zones than did 
their enemies. On the Somme plain they not only turned the 
marshes of the Ancre and the valley of the Crinchon to good 
account but in addition organized the low rolling hills and flat 
uplands into a system of mutually supporting positions, across 
which trenches and wire entanglements were sited with rare 
ability and machine-gun positions so disposed as to sweep with 
a grazing fire every approach across the smooth, open slopes 
characteristic of the Somme topography. "The ground lent 
itself to good artillery observation on the enemy's part, and he 
had skillfully arranged for cross-fire by his guns." 7 Ravines 
and valleys of the plain furnished hidden gun positions from 
which flanking fire could be concentrated on attacking troops 
advancing across the open. The towns and villages, together 
with their underground quarries and cellars characteristic of a 
chalk country, were transformed into individual fortresses, and 
new chambers and galleries were cut in the easily excavated rock. 
These deep underground shelters were later to prove "fatal 
man-traps" which Hindenburg and Ludendorff would order 
destroyed; 8 but for the present they were properly regarded 

7 Except where otherwise stated, all quotations in this section are from Sir 
Douglas Haigis Despatches. These have recently (1919) been published in book 
form in London and Toronto. 

8 Erich von Ludendorff: Ludendorff 's Own Story, August, 1914-November, 
1918: The Great War from the Siege of Liege to the Signing of the Armistice As 
Viewed from the Grand Headquarters of the German Army, 2 vols.. New York, 
1919; reference in Vol. 1, p. 321. 



FIRST SOMME BATTLE 145 

as well-nigh unconquerable strongholds. Open pits and quarries 
provided place for machine guns, trench mortars, or heavier 
artillery. The scattered patches of woodland left growing on 
the inhospitable clay-and-flint formation and other infertile 
spots were transformed into strong points which were rendered 
almost impregnable by the combination of water-soaked soil, 
labyrinthine wire entanglements, trenches and redoubts hidden 
in a tangle of underbrush, and innumerable concealed machine- 
gun nests both on the ground and in the trees. Woodland 
fortresses and village-cavern fortresses were linked together 
by trenches to make as formidable a defensive system as had 
ever defied the power of a determined assailant. At Verdun 
the French enjoyed topographic advantages far superior to 
those which the Germans possessed in the Somme plain; but 
when compared with the stupendous military engineering 
works by which the Germans had fortified the Somme terrain, 
the "poor defenses of Verdun were literally mere child's play." 9 
Against this system the French and British armies launched 
on the first day of July, 19 16, an offensive which was destined 
to be pushed with terrific energy for many months and to be 
known in history as the First Battle of the Somme. Whereas 
the Maneuver of the Somme had involved a flanking operation 
on a grand scale, the First Battle of the Somme was designed 
to pierce the German line by direct frontal attack. The limited 
objectives announced in the official despatches, after the larger 
objective had failed of realization, do not correctly represent 
the importance of the operation, which was in reality the first 
great attempt by the Allies to break through the German de- 
fensive system by sheer weight of prolonged, intense artillery 
fire. It is true that there were other objectives, chief among 
which was the relief of the dangerous German pressure on Ver- 
dun; and the attempt to discredit the objects avowed by Sir 
Douglas Haig, particularly the argument that there was no 
crisis at Verdun after early February, 10 is sufficiently answered 

9 Victor Giraud: Histoire de la Grande Guerre, Paris, 1919, p. 408. 
10 W. L. McPherson: The Strategy of the Great War, New York, 1919, p. 264. 



146 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 



by the revelations of General Mangin, which show that late in 
June the situation at Verdun was so grave that General Petain 
was for the third time urging the necessity of beginning a retreat 
to the left bank of the Meuse, 11 an obstacle which might cause 
disaster to the defenders isolated on the right bank if the enemy 
broke the last dike in front of Verdun, against which he was 

then ready to strike. 
The French Government 
was urging the hastening 
of the Somme opera- 
tions, "in order to relieve 
Verdun as quickly as 
possible." To these ap- 
peals Joffre replied on 
June 26 that the prepa- 
ration for the Somme of- 
fensive had already be- 
gun (the bombardment 
started June 24) and 
that the defenders of 
Verdun should hold firm 
on the right bank. On 
the other hand, General 
Mangin leaves little 
doubt that the breaking 
of the German line was 
Joffre's chief objective in 
the Somme operations. 
Surprise could not be relied upon to bring success as in cer- 
tain later offensives, for the enemy's excellent observation of 
the Somme plain from the slightly higher land of the anticlinal 
arch (Fig. 45) gave him ample warning of the extensive pre- 
liminary preparation for the attack, while the moment of assault 
was foretold by the long bombardment. The line was to be 
broken by unprecedented artillery fire, despite the massing of 

11 Mangin, Rev. des Deux Mond.es, Vol. 56, p. 737. 




Fig. 45 — Three sectors of operations in the 
1016 Battle of the Somme. 1, subsidiary attack 
eastward along the crest of the arch; 2, main 
attack northeastward to gain the crest; 3, 
subsidiary attack eastward to drive the Ger- 
mans back on the Somme barrier. 



FIRST SOMME BATTLE 



147 




Fig. 46 — Field of operations of the First Battle of the Somme. (From the Lens 
and Amiens sheets of the contour map of northern France and Belgium, 1:100,000, 
by the Geographical Section of the General Staff, London, 1016.) 



148 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

enemy reserves, and the operation has been well styled "V offen- 
sive de rupture." 12 Could the rupture be accomplished, the 
Arras-Vimy bastion would be so threatened from the rear as 
to become untenable, and the whole line across the Somme 
battlefield would crumble. 

The topography of the Somme plain (Fig. 46) was in many 
respects especially favorable to such an enterprise. The enemy's 
front was protected by no continuous natural barrier of formid- 
able proportions. The Ancre made such an acute angle with the 
Somme that it was impossible for the Germans between the 
two rivers to utilize both streams to their junction without 
creating a narrow and vulnerable salient in their line. Their 
front left the eastern slopes of the Ancre valley near Albert and 
ran along the southern face of the low anticlinal arch (Fig. 45) 
to reach the Somme half a dozen miles west of Peronne. As 
the course of this river is in general east-west, while the front 
imposed on the Germans trended north-south, it was not prac- 
ticable for the latter to take advantage of the marshy valley 
for any great distance, although the marshy meander at Curlu 
and the abrupt cliffs of the meander scarp known as the "Gen- 
darme's Hat" were skillfully utilized. 

To feed the Allied guns with the enormous quantities of 
munitions required for the proposed offensive and to move and 
supply rapidly the masses of men engaged necessitated the 
construction of a network of new standard-gauge and narrow- 
gauge railways, trench tramways, and roads; and this labor 
was greatly simplified in a region of low relief and gentle slopes. 
For the purpose of supplying water to the advancing troops in 
ample quantity and with the necessary promptness 120 miles 
of water mains had to be laid, and here again the topography 
made the task relatively simple as compared with the same oper- 
ation on certain other battlefields. "Many additional dugouts 
had to be provided as shelter for the troops, for use as dressing 
stations for the wounded, and as magazines for storing ammuni- 
tion, food, water, and engineering material. Scores of miles 

12 Les etapes d'une victoire, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Vol. 47, 1918, pp. 410-456. 



FIRST SOMME BATTLE 149 

of deep communication trenches had to be dug, as well as trenches 
for telephone wires, assembly and assault trenches, and numerous 
gun emplacements and observation posts. Important mining 
operations were undertaken, and charges were laid at various 
points beneath the enemy's lines." Some of these operations 
would have been practically impossible, others extremely 
difficult in the water-soaked clay of Flanders or in the hard 
crystalline rocks underlying parts of the Italian front; but 
the dry chalk of the Somme plain with its covering of loam 
and loess was well adapted to such engineering works. 

On the other hand, the marshy valleys of the Somme, Ancre, 
and smaller streams were serious obstacles across which to supply 
an army on the offensive, and many miles of causeways had to 
be constructed and maintained under heavy enemy fire. Fur- 
thermore, the fissured character of the chalk, by permitting 
the ground water to sink to low levels, made it extremely difficult 
to secure adequate water supplies over the uplands between the 
principal stream valleys. "To meet this difficulty many wells 
and borings were sunk, and over one hundred pumping plants 
were installed." It should be noted, also, that while the excellent 
subdrainage of the chalk insured a dry upland surface during 
fair weather, except where the clay-flint formation and very 
thick loam retained moisture unduly long, in rainy weather 
the extensive covering of relatively impervious loam must 
transform unmetaled roads and shell-torn battlefields into 
quagmires. As the Germans held the higher land of the anti- 
clinal arch east of the Ancre, the Allies suffered a disadvantage 
as to observation which no preparation could overcome and 
which superior work in the air could only partially alleviate. 

It was planned that the Allied offensive should pivot on the 
Arras-Vimy bastion at the north. The principal immediate 
objective was the crest of higher land formed by the anticlinal 
arch mentioned above. This crest rose from 325 to 350 feet 
above the valleys of the Somme and the Ancre, and its dissection 
by ravines tributary to those rivers gave stronger relief and 
somewhat more pronounced slopes than are found in other 



150 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

parts of the plain. In the sector east of the Ancre the German 
front line trenches were located near the base of the southern 
slope of the arch. One and a half to two miles farther back, 
along the critically important crest, ran the German second line 
of defense. If this crest were reached, nothing but lower land 
would lie beyond, clear into the plain of Belgium. The prime 
advantages of effective observation and direct artillery control 
would shift to the side of the Allies; Bapaume, well down the 
northern slope of the broad arch, would be closely threatened; 
and a large section of the German line must give way. 

The low arch (Fig. 45) which was to play so important a role 
in the First Battle of the Somme is cut across from northeast to 
southwest by the Ancre River north of Albert and by the Tortille 
north of Peronne. At one place between these two valleys the 
crest is rather deeply trenched by a dry ravine in which the 
town of Combles is located. Other smaller ravines, usually 
dry, head against the crest and extend southwest, parallel to 
the larger valleys mentioned. As the German front ran south- 
ward from the Arras-Vimy bastion to the crest of the arch near 
Beaumont-Hamel and continued along the east side of the Ancre 
valley across the arch to its southern base, then turned eastward 
along the base to the Somme west of Peronne, and then once 
more ran nearly due south some distance west of the upper 
Somme, it is evident that the character of the terrain naturally 
divided the operations for the capture of the crest into three 
distinct undertakings. In the center British and French forces 
would make a direct frontal attack northeastward up the ravines 
to clear the main portion of the crest from the Ancre to the 
Tortille; this principal operation would be aided on the left by 
British forces attacking eastward, roughly parallel with the axis 
of the arch, on a front of some ten miles from near Albert north- 
ward to Gommecourt; while on the right the French were to 
strike eastward south of the Somme on a front of equal length 
and drive the Germans back on the line of the upper Somme. 

The attack was launched on July I, after a week-long hurri- 
cane of artillery fire had plowed the battlefield into a shapeless 



FIRST SOMME BATTLE 151 

mass of earth in which German trench systems could scarcely 
be distinguished, and mines exploded under the enemy's lines 
had thrown the defenders into confusion. On the northern of 
the three sectors above described the attack was nevertheless a 
failure. The German position behind the Ancre at Thiepval 
was exceptionally strong. In front of and below the village ran 
the marshy valley, through which the sluggish river took its 
course, canal-like, between two dikes. Behind the village the 
land rose as a smooth glacis, effectively swept by enemy fire, 
to the Thiepval "plateau," a typical portion of the crest of the 
broad arch from which the Germans had direct observation 
of British movements in the valley, on the farther slopes, and 
for a long distance to the north and south. German artillery 
fire, controlled by direct observation, cut the dikes of the Ancre 
and flooded the valley floor, harassed troops assembling for at- 
tack, destroyed assembly trenches, and swept all lines of com- 
munication with deadly accuracy. Along the crest lay the 
Schwaben, Stuff, and Zollern redoubts, deep trench strongholds 
skillfully sited so as to increase the natural difficulties of the 
terrain. All combined to give a system of defenses "which may 
fairly be described as being as nearly impregnable as nature, art, 
and the unstinted labor of nearly two years could make them." 

Beaumont-Hamel lay in a steep-sided, flat-bottomed ravine 
which continued the natural defensive position of the Ancre 
valley toward the northwest, just at the point where the main 
valley bent eastward behind the German lines. "The position 
was immensely strong, and its holders — -not without reason- 
believed it to be impregnable. All the slopes were tunneled 
deep with old catacombs — many of them made originally as 
hiding places in the French Wars of Religion — and these had 
been linked up by passages to constitute a subterranean city, 
where whole battalions could be assembled." 13 In the outskirts 
of Beaumont-Hamel were a number of open quarries, and just 
south of the village was a ravine (Y Ravine) nearly a mile long 
and having vertical walls in places 30 feet high, into which had 

13 John Buchan: The Battle of the Somme, New York, 191 7, P- IS3- 



152 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

been excavated German dugouts connecting by tunnels with the 
catacombs mentioned above. "The four successive German 
lines were so skillfully linked up subterraneously that they formed 
virtually a single line, no part of which could be considered 
to be captured till the whole was taken." Against these strong 
positions the British Fourth Army under General Rawlinson 
hurled itself with determined fury. Farther north on the upland 
some progress was made in the initial assault; but the valley 
positions held firm despite the explosion of a great mine under 
Beaumont-Hamel, and, in the words of Field Marshal Sir 
Douglas Haig, "The enemy's continued resistance at Thiepval 
and Beaumont-Hamel made it impossible to forward reinforce- 
ments and ammunition, and in spite of their gallant efforts 
our troops were forced to withdraw during the night to their 
own lines." More than four months of sanguinary conflict was 
to ensue before these strong positions would be wrested from the 
hands of the invaders. Ludendorff had reason to believe the places 
impregnable and to be much surprised by their ultimate capture. 14 
In the center, from the Ancre eastward to the Tortille, success 
was achieved, but at a terrible price. The bloody struggle 
continued, with only imperfect respite in December and January, 
from July I, 1916, until early in March, 1917. The enormous 
strength of the village-cavern fortresses and of the woodland 
strongholds led to numberless special actions which in former 
wars must have ranked as important battles. To preserve the 
great advantage which they enjoyed in direct observation from 
the plateau tops, especially from the crest of the main ridge 
from Thiepval eastward, the Germans fought with a ferocity 
which was only equaled by the grim determination of their 
assailants. When the British finally conquered the Thiepval 
plateau on the ridge summit, the German commanders sac- 
rificed thousands of their men in one furious counterattack 
after another in the vain effort to cling to the vitally important 
upland. To regain a single point on the upland the Germans 
launched eleven big assaults in twenty days. A German order, 

14 Ludendorff, Vol. I, p. 343. 



FIRST SOMME BATTLE 153 

issued prior to one of these counterattacks, read: "Men are 
to be informed by their immediate superiors that this attack 
is not merely a matter of retaking a trench because it was for- 
merly in German possession, but that the recapture of an ex- 
tremely important point is involved. If the enemy remains 
on the ridge he can blow our artillery in the Ancre valley 
to pieces, and the protection of the infantry will then be 
destroyed." 15 At the eastern end of the ridge and overlooking 
the Tortille valley, the counterpart of the Thiepval plateau was 
found in the Sailly-Saillisel plateau (Fig. 46). In speaking of the 
necessity of capturing the village fortress of Sailly-Saillisel, the 
Commander-in-Chief of the British forces wrote to his Govern- 
ment: "Possession of the high ground at this latter village would 
at once give a far better command over the ground to the north 
and northwest, secure the flank of our operations towards Le 
Transloy, and deprive the enemy of observation over the Allied 
communications in the Combles Valley." 

To lessen the consequences of assaulting under enemy observa- 
tion, the British Commander-in-Chief sometimes resorted to 
the perilous expedient of beginning major attacks with large 
forces under the cover of night, although this involved the 
movement of incompletely trained men across the open and 
their assembly in the darkness on a specified line close to the 
enemy's positions. To secure as much cover as possible from 
observation and fire, the dry ravines were much utilized for the 
advances of attacking columns; and as a result inconspicuous 
and formerly unnamed depressions became known the world 
over by the names given them by the soldiers. Prominent among 
these were the "Mash Valley" (Fig. 29), along which was made the 
heroic advance past La Boisselle* and Ovillers on up to Pozieres 
and the famous windmill on the plateau crest ; the smaller ravine 
farther east known to the British as "Sausage Valley," from which 
was launched one of the main attacks on Contalmaison ; "Cater- 
pillar Valley" north of Montauban, in which troops assembled 

15 Buchan, The Battle of the Somme, p. 142. 

* For the villages mentioned in this section, see Fig. 46. 



154 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

for attack on the two Bazentins and Longueval; while the 
main valley of the Ancre where it bent eastward into the Ger- 
man line was utilized in a most important penetrating movement 
by which British forces advanced from Hamel to Beaucourt under 
protection of the high valley walls, later continuing the penetra- 
tion as far as Grandcourt. Combles ravine could not be used as a 
line of advance, but on the contrary constituted a serious obstacle 
to the attackers, because in the ravine itself the village of Combles 
with exceptionally extensive catacombs was a strong fortress 
from which a deadly fire could be poured up and down valley, 
while other village fortresses on the uplands swept the valley 
floor with flanking fire. The valley of the Ancre was sometimes a 
dangerous obstacle for the Germans as well as a line of penetra- 
tion for the British, as in the operations about the little village of 
St. Pierre Divion north of Thiepval on November 13, when so 
many Germans were hemmed in between the attacking force and 
the marshy barrier that the number of prisoners taken exceeded 
the number of those attacking. In general, however, one might 
say that the dry ravines, and occasionally the larger valleys, 
were the means by which the Allies moved forward for the con- 
quest of the upland. 

The third sector of the attacking front, from the large meander 
of the Sorarae at Curlu southward, was held by the French. 
In the main attack on the crest of the arch French forces also co- 
operated, holding the territory from Combles ravine east- 
ward to the valley of the Tortille and conquering the plateau 
of Sailly-Saillisel. Their subsidiary operation on the right wing 
of the attack gained much ground. North of the Somme it 
was necessary to move eastward so as to clear the enemy from 
strong positions on the scarps cut by the river in its meanders, 
positions which were sometimes very difficult to attack because 
protected on one side by the valley marshes at the base of the 
cliffs. A stiff engagement took place at the scarp known as 
the Gendarme's Hat, near Curlu, on the opening day of the 
offensive. The French advance was only stopped, however, 
when the attackers faced the formidable position of Mont St. 



FIRST SOMME BATTLE '155 

Quentin, which is the key to the defense of Peronne. Between 
the Tortille and the Cologne valleys the southern slope of the 
anticlinal arch forms a southwestward projecting spur, which 
ends in a bluff overlooking Peronne on the north. It is this 
spur end which is dignified by the name Mont St. Quentin, 
and, since it is bordered on the north by the marshes of the 
Tortille, on the west by the marshes of the Tortille and Somme, 
on the south by the marshes of the Somme and Cologne, and 
affords commanding views northward up the Tortille valley, 
westward down the Somme valley, and southward up the 
valley of the upper Somme, it is clear that it is a geographic 
feature of considerable military importance. Possession of it 
must give possession of Peronne in the marshes close below, 
standing at the intersection of the important north-south valley 
depression (Tortille-Somme) with the equally important east- 
west depression (Cologne-Somme) — a point of such value that 
in 1870 the Germans ordered its capture at all costs. The French 
now were unable, however, to advance beyond the Tortille 
marshes, which they reached west of the Mont, and an expectant 
world waited day after day for the communique which never 
came, telling of the fall of this topographic stronghold. South 
of the river the French made notable advances across the little 
dissected surface of the remarkably flat plain known as the San- 
terre, where there are few topographic obstacles until the valley 
of the upper Somme is reached. Among the few, one of the 
most important is a low mound formed by one of the Tertiary 
erosion remnants (see p. 121) rising slightly above the general 
level; and Chaulnes, situated on the mound and near an im- 
portant railway junction, was the key to the German position in 
this sector. Repeated efforts of the French to take the position 
were unsuccessful, but farther north the Germans were forced 
eastward, until in the vicinity of Peronne they were so hemmed in 
against the marshy obstacle at their backs that their only course 
was to retreat to the eastern bank to avoid a catastrophe. 

Throughout the whole of this great battle, and on all three 
sectors of its front, the troops had to deal for the most part 



156 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

with two of the four formations typical of the region — the basal 
chalk and the surface loam. The degree to which the chalk 
influenced the character of the fighting is obvious from the fre- 
quent references to the chalk pits, quarries, cellars, catacombs, 
subterranean galleries, tunnels, and similar excavations which 
fill the pages of every published account of the battle. Even 
more striking, if possible, was the influence of the loam upon 
the military operations and their consequences. In every de- 
tailed description of the Somme campaign the author will 
be found to have paid his respects many times over, often with- 
out realizing it, to the uppermost geological formation of the 
battlefield. In the pages of a single popular history of the bat- 
tle 16 we may read that "the soil of the place was the best con- 
ceivable for digging, for it cut like cheese, and hardened like 
brick in dry weather;" while the pits and brickyards in more 
clayey parts of the loam (terre a briques of the French) were 
organized into strong points of resistance. But when "there was 
a deluge of rain . . . the sodden ground and flooded trenches 
crippled the movement of our men," "the whole land became a 
morass, . . . every road became a watercourse, and in the 
hollows the mud was as deep as a man's thighs." "Off the roads 
the ground was a squelching bog, dugouts crumbled in, and 
communication trenches ceased to beX "Trenches . . . were 
often three feet deep in water," and "it was no light job to get 
out over the slimy parapets." "The roads were past praying 
for," and "the bringing up of supplies and the evacuation of 
the wounded placed a terrible burden on our strength. Under 
conditions of such grievous discomfort an attack on a compre- 
hensive scale was out of the question, the more when we re- 
member the condition of the area behind our lines." Even "the 
dusty hollows became quagmires," because they were floored 
with loam washed down from the uplands. 

If it be feared that our observer has exaggerated the military 
consequences of the character of the loam in rainy seasons, turn 
to the sober despatches of the British Commander-in-Chief. 

16 Buchan, The Battle of the Somme. 



FIRST SOMME BATTLE 157 

"Unfortunately, at this juncture, very unfavorable weather 
set in and continued with scarcely a break during the remainder 
of October and the early part of November. . . Constant 
rain turned the mass of hastily dug trenches for which we were 
fighting into channels of deep mud. The country roads, broken 
by countless shell craters, that cross the deep stretch of ground 
we had lately won, rapidly became almost impassable, making 
the supply of food, stores, and ammunition a serious problem. 
These conditions multiplied the difficulties of attack." Through- 
out the despatches we read repeatedly of preparations for further 
advance "hindered by bad weather" and of "awaiting better 
weather for further operations." But on November 9 a dry 
spell began which made possible the launching of delayed at- 
tacks' along the Ancre, although the scope of the operations had 
to be restricted because "the ground was still very bad in places." 
Even then, "opposite Serre the ground was so heavy that it 
became necessary to abandon the attack at an early stage." 

In the end the water-soaked loam proved the best ally of 
the German. The British and French had won a great victory 
over their enemy by driving him from the important crest north 
of the Somme and by backing him into a perilous position south 
of the river. With his morale seriously impaired, with the Allies 
threatening him from a crest which gave them enormous advan- 
tages in observation and artillery control, and with the danger of 
a forced retreat across a marshy barrier adding to his embar- 
rassments, he was forced to the construction of the Hindenburg 
Line (Siegfried Stellung) far in his rear, and to fall back upon it 
at the earliest opportunity. But he had escaped the greater peril. 
The terrible condition of roads and trenches in the loam, and the 
morass formed by the shell-torn zone, slowed down the action of 
the Allied battering ram. It stuck in the mud at the critical 
moment, just when the last of the original German strong lines 
was in the grip of the attackers and when a break-through might 
have been hoped for. The pressure on Verdun had been relieved 
and other important objectives gained; but the piercing of the 
German front, although attempted with all possible power of guns 



158 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

and men and aided by the first use of tanks in the history of war, 
had failed of accomplishment. Napoleon's "fifth element" — 
mud — had, in the sober words of the British Commander-in- 
Chief, "prevented full advantage being taken of the favorable 
situation created by our advance, at a time when we had good 
grounds for hoping to achieve yet more important successes." 
Joffre had urged that the British, in company with the French, 
should continue the pressure in spite of all difficulties; and Gen- 
eral Mangin is of the opinion that had unity of command existed 
this would have been done, the German line would have broken, 
and final victory would have been achieved in 1917. As it 
was, the German line was merely bent, not broken, and the 
Arras- Vimy bastion stood firm. 

The loam which had mired the French at Agincourt, and 
worried the Prussians at Villers-Bretonneux in 1870, had saved 
the Kaiser's armies from complete disaster. At the same time 
it had, in combination with the subterranean fortresses of the 
chalk, rendered the Allied advance so difficult and costly and 
the apparent results attained so limited, as to contribute greatly 
to the "semi-disgrace" into which certain commanders on this 
front now fell, and to bring about the replacement of Joffre by 
General Nivelle. 

The Hindenburg Retreat 

Further results of the Somme battle were soon to make them- 
selves evident. Possession of the crest of the low arch between 
the Ancre and the Tortille gave the Allies such command of 
the enemy terrain to the north that broad areas became un- 
tenable, and during the month of February the Germans 
evacuated one position after another. 

Late in February and early in March these local withdrawals 
became merged in the great Hindenburg Retreat, the main 
movement of which began March 16, and which was the sequel 
to the two great struggles on the Somme plain. The Maneuver 
of the Somme had left the Germans holding a front which was 
longer than they could effectively man, insufficiently protected 



THE HINDENBURG RETREAT 159 

by natural obstacles, and forming a salient which might some 
day prove a trap. The First Battle of the Somme had lengthened 
the front while at the same time diminishing German man power, 
deprived the Teutons of the strongest of their natural defenses, 
and demonstrated that the salient could in time be pushed in. 
Furthermore, the German high command had now definitely 
decided upon a purely defensive policy in the west, while awaiting 
the effects of the submarine campaign and exploiting their 
gains in the east. 17 Such a policy would be safer if a great Allied 
offensive on the Somme front were rendered for a time impossible 
by a change of position from the old line in front of which had 
been painfully elaborated all the machinery for launching such 
an offensive — roads, railways, tramways, shelters, assembly 
trenches, subways, dressing stations, hospitals, wells, water 
mains, munition depots, etc. — to a position in front of which 
none of these things should be left in existence. All these con- 
siderations demanded withdrawal to a shorter and better de- 
fended line across the Battlefield of the Somme. It was to such 
a line that the enemy was now retreating, pivoting on the im- 
pregnable Vimy buttress in the north. 

Unfortunately the Allies were unable to press the enemy and 
so disorganize his retreat. Sir Douglas Haig reported to his 
Government that "when the thaw commenced in the third week 
of February the roads, disintegrated by the frost, broke up, the 
sides of the trenches fell in, and the area across which our troops 
had fought their way forward returned to a condition of slough 
and quagmire even worse than that of the. previous autumn. 
On the other hand, the condition of the roads and the surface 
of the ground behind the enemy steadily improved the farther 
he withdrew from the scene of the fighting. . . Over such 
ground and under such conditions rapid pursuit was impossible." 
Again the loam was proving to be the best ally of the Germans. 

The only serious difficulty encountered by the Allies in the 
early stages of their pursuit was at the marshy valley of the 
Tortille-upper Somme, which is likewise the line of the Canal 

17 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 2 et seq. 



160 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

du Nord (p. 130) and is backed by the commanding position of 
Mont St. Quentin. After overcoming the resistance of German 
rearguards posted along this natural trench to delay the pur- 
suers, British troops, who had taken over a further portion of 
the front formerly held by the French, occupied Mont St. 
Quentin and Peronne and succeeded on March 28 in getting 
across the Somme farther south at Brie. The British Command- 
er-in-Chief found that "the River Somme, the bridges over which 
had been destroyed by the retreating enemy, presented a for- 
midable obstacle," and in his despatch covering the operations 
pays a special tribute to the Royal Engineers for the able manner 
in which they bridged the barrier, here of triple strength 
— marsh, river, and canal. Bridges had to be constructed at 
six points before the pursuers crossing to the east side would 
have their communications established behind them. Foot- 
bridges for the infantry to pass in single file were completed by 
the night of March 18, medium-type bridges for horse transport 
and cavalry by the morning of March 20, the heavy bridges 
for all forms of traffic not until the afternoon of March 28, or 
ten days after the arrival of the pursuers at the obstacle. Such 
are the embarrassments which a river barrier imposes upon 
an army, even when not defended by an enemy in force. 

East of the Somme-Tortille barrier there is no serious north- 
south obstacle until one reaches the Crozat-St. Quentin-Scheldt 
canal, which follows in part the marshy valleys of the Somme 
headwaters and upper Scheldt. Between Cambrai and St. 
Quentin the new "Hindenburg Line," really a zone of defensive 
works several miles in width, was based on this obstacle; but 
south of St. Quentin it swung southeastward to follow behind the 
Oise valley and canal to a point south of La Fere. Here, there- 
fore, the depression followed by the Crozat Canal, consisting 
of the headwater portion of the Somme from St. Quentin to 
St. Simon, and of two minor valleys from St. Simon to the 
Oise at Tergnier, constituted a single topographic barrier capable 
of serving as "a very solid position of German defense," 18 in 

18 Berthaut, De la Marne a. la Mer du Nord, p. 144. 



THE HINDENBURG RETREAT 161 

advance of the main Hindenburg Line. The French pressed 
the enemy back from the advanced position and continued to 
the main barrier at the Oise, where the Germans had flooded 
the broad marshes to make their new front the more impregnable. 
It had been part of the German plan to deliver a serious coun- 
terattack upon the pursuers when they should have the Crozat 
Canal obstacle at their backs; 19 but the attack was not pushed 
with sufficient vigor, and by the end of the first week in April 
the Allies were close to the main Hindenburg Line from the 
Scarpe to the Aisne, having in some places captured the outer 
defenses of that position. 

Like the former line around the Noyon salient, the new Ger- 
man front was based on two solid natural buttresses. In the 
north the Vimy buttress still held firm. At the southern end 
of the line the Noyon massif had been abandoned in favor of 
the St. Gobain massif just south of La Fere in the southeastern 
corner of the Somme battlefield (Fig. 24). This outlier of the 
Tertiary plateau is the largest area of high land bordering the 
plain of the Somme. Its flat upland and steep sides are in good 
part covered with forest, and on three sides it is surrounded by 
a natural moat formed of the marshy valleys of the Serre, Oise, 
and Ailette Rivers. Only the northeastern border lacked a 
valley protection, and this was secure because it lay well within 
the German lines. The St. Gobain buttress was even more solid 
than the one which had been abandoned near Noyon. 

The new front between the terminal buttresses was not only 
much shorter, but was also far better protected than the old 
line farther west. It was not merely that it was based on the 
Oise valley, on the Crozat-St. Quentin-Scheldt canal system 
for considerable distances, on the Canal du Nord for a few 
miles southwest of Cambrai, and was supported by such for- 
midable intermediate buttresses as the old marsh-girded fortress 
of La Fere and the city fortresses of St. Quentin and Cambrai, 
whose suburbs and subterranean caverns were organized into 
impregnable positions; but with a skill which can only command 

18 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 7. 



1 62 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

the highest admiration the Germans had sited their lines of 
trenches and barbed wire across the rolling hills in such manner 
that every line of approach was across open surfaces swept by 
machine guns and by fire from artillery concealed in ravines 
behind the German front, while as few concealed artillery posi- 
tions as possible were left to the Allies. So adroitly was the 
front adjusted to the topography that the advantage of observa- 
tion from higher parts of the plain, especially from such dominat- 
ing points as Bourlon hill west of Cambrai, lay with the Germans. 
No one who studied the line on the ground could fail to be im- 
pressed with the ability of the Germans to turn every element 
of surface form to their advantage. Sir Douglas Haig testified 
that "the line had been . . . sited with great care and skill 
to deny all advantages of position to any force attempting to 
attack it." 

The Third Battle of Vimy Ridge 

Allied strategy now had as its objective the breaking of the 
German front by prying it loose from the terminal buttresses 
of Vimy Ridge and the St. Gobain massif. Both of these points 
could be attacked from the old Allied positions, without the 
long delay incident to preparing an offensive in the devastated 
areas abandoned during the Hindenburg Retreat. Two principal 
operations were accordingly planned to deal with these two 
strong points. Vimy Ridge had already defied two great Allied 
offensives and a continuous series of minor struggles. In order 
that the new attack on the buttress should not be defeated by 
the natural and artificial obstacles of this highly important 
position, the same extensive preparations which had preceded 
the Battle of the Somme in 1916 were undertaken, including 
the building of reservoirs, the installation of numerous pumping 
plants, and the laying of many miles of pipe line, to insure abun- 
dant water supplies to every part of the arid chalk hills, and, in 
addition, the construction of plank roadways which would make 
traffic possible when rains turned the loam into a sea of mud. As 
the region east of Arras was to be included in the field of opera- 



THIRD VIMY BATTLE 163 

tions, the large system of underground quarries in the town 
and its suburbs was linked together by tunnels, fitted up for 
occupation by a great number of troops, and connected with 
the trench system to the east by long subways. The attacking 
forces were assembled in these subterranean chambers, safe from 
enemy fire, and moved out to the assembly trenches by the 
underground routes, thus defeating the German intention to 
smother any attack by concentrated artillery fire upon the 
accurately located surface exits from the town. It was part 
of the Allied plan to attract to the Arras-Vimy stronghold as 
many as possible of the German reserves before the attack on 
the extremely difficult terrain defending the St. Gobain buttress 
should be launched; and the great advantages enjoyed by the 
holder of the heights of Vimy made it reasonably safe for the 
Allies to assume that their enemy would put forth every effort 
to hold that part of his front, rather than seek to dislocate Allied 
strategy by another withdrawal like that from the old Somme 
front farther south. "No such withdrawal from his important 
Vimy Ridge positions was likely. He would be almost certain 
to fight for this ridge." 20 

"The great strength of these defenses demanded very thorough 
artillery preparation," which extended over three weeks, cul- 
minating during the last few days in a terrific bombardment. 
The third great Battle of Vimy Ridge, often called the Battle 
of Arras, was fully engaged when the infantry attacks, led by 
tanks, were launched on April 9, 1917. The struggle was fierce 
and bloody, and the defenders launched many counterattacks 
from tunnels and dugouts. But "the whole might of Canada" 
was assembled for the assault, and in two days the Germans 
were driven from the entire ridge and down into the plains to 
the east. In the expressive football vernacular of the British 
soldier, the Germans had been "kicked into the hole," a saying 
which evidences full appreciation of the value of topographic 
position in modern warfare. The excavations with which the 
defenders had honeycombed the chalk ridge proved to be man- 

20 Sir Douglas Haig's Despatches, London, ioio, p. 82. 



1 64 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

traps when the attacking flood swept past, and such subterranean 
passages as the Volker and Prinz Arnault Tunnels were found 
packed with Germans. 

Before the attack the Allies' observation had been blocked by 
the ridge crest close in front (Fig. 34). Now, after an advance 
of but a few hundred yards, they commanded a magnificent 
panorama of the Flanders plain (Fig. 35) from a crest rising 
almost 400 feet above it. The solid Vimy buttress which had 
supported the new German front on the north was wholly in 
British hands. The way was paved for a future Allied advance 
across the plain. From the crest of the ridge Allied control of 
artillery fire over a considerable zone immediately to the east 
was so effective that the Germans on April 13 began the evacua- 
tion of that part of the plain nearest the ridge. In the words of 
Ludendorff, "the situation was extremely critical," "a day like 
April 9 threw all calculations to the winds" and "was a bad begin- 
ning for the decisive struggle of this year." 21 The loss of a sup- 
posedly impregnable and critically important topographic posi- 
tion was sufficient ground to make Ludendorff admit that April 
9 was one of his "black days." 

The Allies were correspondingly elated. The British Com- 
mander-in-Chief rejoiced that "the capture of the Vimy Ridge 
had removed a constant menace to the security of our line." 
His troops would now enjoy a higher and drier foothold, with 
all which that means to the health and morale of an army; 
and in addition to excellent observation over German move- 
ments on the muddy plain of Flanders he would have his own 
back areas concealed from direct view. 

It is interesting at this point to pause a moment and note 
that the bloody battles of Flanders were fought to gain possession 
of the Messines-Passchendaele ridge and its continuation west- 
ward in the Mont Kemmel ridge, the most important high 
ground in the plain of Flanders; the first great Battle of the 
Somme to gain the crest of the anticlinal arch forming the most 
important high land in the plain of the Somme; and the terrific 

21 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, pp. 22-23. 



THIRD VIMY BATTLE 165 

struggles for Vimy Ridge to gain the most commanding position 
on the borderland between the two plains. "Commanding posi- 
tions" and "dominating heights" have not yet lost their military 
significance. 

East of Arras the attack was also successful. Here the south- 
eastern terminus of Vimy Ridge is dissected into several low hills, 
and for one of these, Monchy-le-Preux, particularly hard fighting 
took place. The hill is protected on the north by the valley of 
the Scarpe and on the south by that of the Cojeul. Its crest 
dominates a wide stretch of country to the east and west, as 
well as the valleys north and south. In 1654 the French army 
under Turenne, in order to threaten the Spaniards besieging 
Arras, had taken up a strong position on this same dominating 
high land, with its right resting on the marshes of the Scarpe 
and its left on the Cojeul River, "its flanks being thus perfectly 
supported by these two natural obstacles." 22 The Germans 
now occupied this naturally strong position, and their "com- 
manding positions on Monchy-le-Preux Hill blocked the way of 
advance along the Scarpe." Large numbers of machine-gun 
detachments concealed in a series of sunken roads converging 
on the village of Monchy-le-Preux obstinately defended every 
approach to the summit. After heavy fighting the position was 
carried, and from the dominating crest the conquerors turned 
a murderous fire upon the Germans retreating eastward over 
the open plain. 

Farther north the Arras-Lens railroad, because of its suc- 
cession of cuts and fills necessitated by the rolling character of 
the chalk plain, was a serious obstacle to overcome. But here, 
as in the great Battle of the Somme farther south, the loam, 
soaked by melting snow and rain, was a chief embarrassment. 
It gave a special character to the fighting and impressed all 
who recorded the events of the battle. In Conan Doyle's his- 
tory of "The British Campaign in France and Flanders" one 
reads of men plodding ankle deep in the mire, of repeated at- 
tacks impeded by the deep mud, of men nearly buried alive 

22 Napoleon Bonaparte, Memoirs of the History of France, Vol. 3, p. 74. 



166 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

in the dreadful morass; while the despatches of the Commander- 
in-Chief speak of the difficult going over wet and sticky ground, 
of troops suffering great hardship and movements seriously 
hampered,- of delays in bringing up guns and operations post- 
poned till the ground should be drier, and of the incalculably 
greater results which the offensive might have achieved if un- 
favorable weather had not made the ground so bad as to cause 
various delays by which the enemy profited to bring up needed 
reserves and strengthen his positions. The loam was the per- 
sistent enemy of complete Allied success, even when it could 
not save the Germans from what was in some respects the most 
serious military reverse they had yet suffered in the war. 

The operations continued slowly throughout April and well 
into May. Their net result was to place the entire Arras- Vimy 
buttress wholly in the grip of the British, where it was to form 
an impregnable bastion about which the waves of new German 
offensives would lash in vain, even when the lines to the north 
and south of it were overwhelmed. It would be difficult to 
overestimate the gain to the Allied cause represented by the 
victory achieved in the third and successful battle for Vimy 
Ridge. 

The St. Gobain buttress was so formidable a natural position 
that it was decided to pry the German line loose from it by an 
attack delivered farther east, along the heights north of the Aisne 
River. The terrain of this offensive and its effects upon the 
operation are considered in another chapter, for it falls within 
the limits of the Battlefield of the Marne. Suffice it to say 
here that the operation was a failure, and that the St. Gobain 
buttress stood firm until the autumn of 1918. 

The Battle of Cambrai 

During the summer of 1917 the battle line across the Somme 
plain remained essentially stationary. The Germans had 
retreated to the Hindenburg Line for the express purpose of stand- 
ing on the defensive there, while the British were forced to con- 
sume the time in re-establishing their trench systems, shelters, 



BATTLE OF CAMBRAI 167 

roads, railways, and other equipment in the new areas which 
the Germans had abandoned to them. Only at Cambrai was 
the usual monotony of dogged positional warfare broken by 
an important operation, designed to pierce the enemy's line 
by a surprise attack. Sir Douglas Haig had decided to try the 
effect of massed tanks as a means of destroying the elaborate 
wire entanglements of the Hindenburg Line (Fig. 47), thus 




Fig. 47 — The main wire defenses of the Hindenburg Line on the chalk plain of 
the Somme battlefield, southeast of Arras. It was the skillful siting of the defenses 
on the topography of the plain, more than the formidable entanglements them- 
selves, which gave the famous line its great strength. 

eliminating the long artillery bombardment which always gave 
the enemy ample warning of an impending assault. Just as 
the gently undulating Somme plain had witnessed on November 
15, 1916, during the First Battle of the Somme, the first use 
of the tank in warfare, so now, a year later, it was to witness 
its first use as a major offensive weapon. The Cambrai sector 
was selected as the point of attack because that part of the plain 
was specially favorable for the employment of tanks, and prepara- 
tions for the attack could be well concealed there under the 
cover of Havrincourt Wood and other natural protection. The 



i63 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

dominating height of Bourlon, which commanded not only the 
surrounding plain and long stretches of the Agache valley carry- 
ing the Canal du Nord on the west, but also the Scheldt River 
and canal on the east, was the main objective of the attack, 
rather than the city of Cambrai. 

On November 20 at dawn, screened by artificial smoke clouds 
but without artillery preparation, a veritable army of the iron 
monsters crawled across the rolling plain, smashing their way 
into the German lines. It was a clean break-through, and in- 
fantry and cavalry pushed on for a number of miles until the 
obstacles formed by the Scheldt valley with its river and canal, 
the rolling hills of the open plain, and the wooded Tertiary 
erosion remnant of Bourlon hill began to break the force of 
the blow. At Masnieres a tank trying to cross a partially 
destroyed bridge over the Scheldt River and Canal broke through, 
completing the destruction of the bridge so that cavalry could 
not cross the barrier in sufficient strength to overcome the 
enemy's resistance at that point. After some delay a squadron 
succeeded in crossing on a hastily constructed temporary bridge 
and after heavy losses took up a position in a sunken road 
where it defended itself until nightfall. No tanks could cross 
on the temporary structure, and heavy traffic was restricted to 
the one bridge seized intact at Marcoing. As a result this pas- 
sage of river and canal was so slow that the Germans had time 
to reorganize resistance on the low hills immediately to the 
east. Even where the canal was successfully crossed by infantry 
the river sometimes, as near Crevecoeur, effectually checked 
further progress. The Scheldt barrier had proved an insuperable 
obstacle to any effective advance to the eastward. 

Elsewhere on the battlefield difficulties were encountered. 
The open plain rendered the slow-moving tanks excellent tar- 
gets. One German artillery officer, serving a field gun single- 
handed until killed, put 16 of the monsters out of action. Sunken 
roads delayed the bringing up of guns, without which some of 
the German positions could not be cleared. The northern 
slope of a small valley south of Flesquieres which was effectively 



BATTLE OF CAMBRAI 169 

swept by German machine-gun fire, together with the village 
on the upland crest, proved a difficult barrier to pass. When 
it was successfully negotiated, the British positions north of it 
"were completely commanded by the Bourlon Ridge, and unless 
this ridge were gained it would be impossible to hold them." 
On the other hand, "possession of Bourlon Ridge would enable 
our troops to obtain observation over the ground to the north, 
which sloped gently down to the Sensee River. The enemy's 
defensive lines south of the Scarpe and Sensee Rivers would 
thereby be turned, his communications exposed to the observed 
fire of our artillery, and his positions in this sector jeopardised. 
In short, so great was the importance of the ridge to the enemy 
that its loss would probably cause the abandonment by the 
Germans of their carefully prepared defense systems for a con- 
siderable distance to the north of it." 23 The southern side of 
Caesar's Camp (p. 125), which had so often opposed its natural 
strength to the genius of man, was again to write an important 
page of history. 

The fight for the Bourlon height was of a most desperate 
character, attack and counterattack following each other in 
quick succession for five days, at the end of which time neither 
side controlled the whole ridge. Two days were then spent in 
preparation for a renewal of the struggle. Meanwhile the 
Germans were gathering, for an assault on a wide front, forces 
"whose secret assembly was assisted by the many deep folds 
and hollows typical of a chalk formation." The German counter- 
offensive was launched on November 30, and south of Cambrai 
made such rapid progress up the "natural runway" formed by 
a deep gulley known as Ravine 22 that the British positions on 
this part of the front were turned. Farther north, where the 
plain was more open and surprise therefore less possible, the 
attack was stopped short, although in supporting their line the 
British were much hampered by the Canal du Nord. This 
was a deep trench 80 feet wide with steep, brick-lined walls, 
without water at this point, across which the soldiers had to 

23 Haig's Despatches, p. 159. 



170 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

scramble as best they could, aided by ropes, since all bridges were 
swept by German gunfire. Meanwhile the British troops on the 
eastern side of the Scheldt barrier were in a perilous situation, 
hemmed in between the enemy in front and the river behind them, 
while their hold on Bourlon ridge was very precarious. Both 
positions were therefore abandoned, the British falling back to 
the western side of the canal and to the Flesquieres ridge during 
the first week of December. 

The "surprise battle" of Cambrai had failed because the valley 
of the Scheldt, with its river and canal, had blocked the east- 
ward advance of the right wing of the attacking force; and 
Bourlon hill, the isolated remnant of Tertiary sands and clays 
rising above the rest of the plain, had as effectually checked the 
northward advance of the left wing. 

The Second Battle of the Somme 

Throughout the winter of 1917-1918 the opposing forces on 
the Somme battlefield faced each other along the strong Hinden- 
burg Line. Then, on March 21, 1918, with dramatic suddenness 
the German flood burst from its confines on a front 45 miles wide 
and swept westward over the plain. The Hindenburg defensive 
had given place to the Ludendorff offensive. The Somme front 
had been selected for the first of the great German drives de- 
signed to end the war before American aid could become effec- 
tive, in part because the gently rolling surface of the plain was 
favorable to military operations on a grand scale. 24 

Except along the Oise valley the British front was unpro- 
tected by strong natural barriers, for the Germans maintained 
outlying defenses west of the Scheldt and Somme valleys from 
Cambrai to St. Quentin. Indeed, for many miles between these 
two cities the Germans had left the British on the western 
crest of a divide from which the land slopes down southwestward 
to the Somme. The topography certainly tempted the Germans 
to "kick the British into the hole," and here if anywhere the Allies 
should have organized strong defensive positions along natural 

24 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 220. 



SECOND SOMME BATTLE 171 

obstacles in their rear, in anticipation of such an event. True, 
such obstacles were only too few in number; for the valley routes 
for the most part trended toward the west, pointing the way 
to Amiens and the sea. Thus again the topography invited the 
Germans to a great offensive, the ultimate objective of which 
should be to drive a wedge between the French and British 
armies and force the British back upon the coast. 

The second great Battle of the Somme opened with an attack 
in which Ludendorff sought to secure the advantages of surprise 
not so much by the use of tanks, the "Cambrai method," as by 
the employment of overwhelming quantities of toxic gases. 
Preliminary preparations for the attack had been carried out 
largely by night, and by day the accumulating masses of men 
and materials lay concealed in the villages, in the subterranean 
caverns so abundant in the chalk, and in the scattered patches 
of woodland. A thick white fog covered the whole battle- 
field during the entire morning of the attack. Blinded by fog, 
stifled by gas, and with their communications cut by the 
heavy bombardment, the British were unable effectively to 
defend their line, even where it lay behind a strong natural 
barrier. The German wave overwhelmed every obstacle, and 
the British retreat westward across the Somme plain was quickly 
under way. 

Between La Fere and Moy the British Fifth Army front was 
protected by the broad, marshy valley of the Oise with its river 
and canal. Although in some measure forewarned of and pre- 
pared for the attack on other parts of the line, the British com- 
mand apparently thought this sector so strong naturally that the 
enemy would make no serious effort against it. Trusting too 
much to the protection of the terrain, it reduced the defending 
forces to a thin line of troops, wholly inadequate to meet a strong 
attack. As this part of the front had been taken over from the 
French only a few weeks before, its organization was not as 
perfect as it might have been. The British commander had 
laid out but not completed a three-zone defensive system. 
Evidently the French, and possibly also the British, had not 



172 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

adequately entrenched themselves. The greatest military 
genius in history gave expression to the truth that "the natural 
positions commonly met with are insufficient to shelter an army 
from another that is more numerous, without the aid of art." 25 
It has been widely stated that one cause of the successive Allied 
disasters was the reluctance of both French and British troops 
to dig into the earth sufficiently. In his account of "The British 
Campaign in France and Flanders" Conan Doyle vigorously 
defends the British army against this criticism, but his opinion 
is not supported by some of those most responsible for the British 
defensive systems. One highly placed general of engineers 
admitted the truth of the charge, and illustrated his difficulties 
by saying that on making a tour of inspection to an army front 
where he had prescribed a certain system of urgently required 
trenches, he found only two hundred men digging, but two 
thousand watching a football match. 

Be that as it may, the Germans did attack the Oise barrier 
with very heavy forces. An exceptionally dry spring had 
rendered the marshes passable for infantry at many more places 
than usual, thus detracting from the effectiveness of the obstacle. 
The attackers picked their way across the valley, concealed by 
the dense fog. When the British outposts, who could not see 50 
yards in any direction, discovered the assaulting columns, it was 
too late to defend the crossings. Even after noon the fog was still 
dense, and one officer is reported by Conan Doyle to have sent 
back this message at 12:30 p. m. : "Boche all round within 50 
yards, except rear. Can only see 40 yards, so it is difficult to kill 
the blighters." Telephone and telegraph wires were generally 
cut, and, as the S. O. S. signals of the outposts could not be seen 
by the artillery and machine gunners, it can hardly be said that 
the initial passage of the barrier was really opposed. The small 
advanced groups fought to the last man, with that grim determin- 
ation which is the glory of the British soldier on whatever field he 
fights; but they were no match for the numbers which over- 
whelmed them, often before they could pass back word of the 

25 Napoleon Bonaparte, Memoirs of the History of France, Vol. 3, p. 72. 



SECOND SOMME BATTLE 173 

attack. The Oise barrier fell, not because it was not strong, 
but because it was not strongly defended. 

Farther north the British struggled valiantly to preserve 
their front west of St. Quentin, where it based on the vantage 
point of Holnon Wood, located, like the Bourlon Wood west of 
Cambrai, on one of the isolated Tertiary erosion remnants 
rising slightly above the general level of the plain. This position 
was held all day and was only abandoned when outflanked by 
enemy forces advancing over less difficult parts of the terrain. 

The first strong natural position behind the British front was 
the line of valley depressions followed by the Crozat Canal from 
Tergnier to St. Simon, the marshy Somme River and the Somme 
Canal from St. Simon to Peronne, and the Tortille River and 
Canal du Nord from Peronne northward. "The Fifth Army 
Commander decided on the evening of the 21st March, after 
consultation with the G. O. C. Ill Corps, to withdraw the divi- 
sions of that Corps behind the Crozat Canal. The movement 
involved the withdrawal of the 36th Division ... to the 
line of the Somme Canal." These withdrawals took place that 
same night, and the next day found the southern end of the 
British line protected by the Crozat-Somme barrier. Un- 
fortunately the full value of the obstacle was not to be realized, 
because the charges placed under the numerous bridges often 
failed to explode, or only partially wrecked the structures. 

On March 22 there was a fierce battle along the Crozat Canal. 
Aided by partially destroyed bridges and by rafts, German 
fcrces succeeded in crossing the canal at four points between 
Tergnier and St. Simon but were thrown back at two. That 
evening the troops of the XVIIIth Corps, farther north, opposite 
St. Quentin, where the main force of the German blow had fallen, 
were ordered to fall back behind the Somme barrier, in touch 
with the Illrd Corps on their right, while a large bridgehead 
east of Peronne was to be held by the XlXth and Vllth Corps 
next in line to the north. The danger of attempting to defend 
this bridgehead in the face of increasing German pressure and 
without the aid of any natural obstacle resulted in orders being 



174 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 



issued the next morning for the XlXth Corps to retire behind 
the Somme marshes, while the Vllth Corps later in the day with- 
drew behind the Tortille valley-Canal du Nord line. Thus the 
entire Crozat-Somme-Tortille barrier, from the Oise valley to the 
source of the Tortille, was utilized as the first strong position 
behind which the defeated British armies sought protection. 

Despite the fact that unusually dry weather made the Somme 
marshes less of an obstacle than usual, permitting the crossing 




Fig. 48 — The small erosion butte of Mont Renaud commanding the Oise 
valley route to Paris just south of Noyon. The natural strength of the position has 
been increased by artificial fortifications. (French official photograph.) 



of infantry between the recognized points of passage, the situa- 
tion was for the moment reassuring on that part of the front. 
Most of the bridges had been destroyed, and attempts of the 
enemy to cross were repulsed with heavy losses. Throughout 
the night of the 23rd and all day of the 24th the north-south sec- 
tor of the valley south of Peronne was held by the defenders, 
except at Pargny, half way between Peronne and Ham, where 
the enemy succeeded in establishing a bridgehead on the western 
bank. At Ham, however, the bridges were not completely de- 
molished, and the enemy crossed in force. The two enemy 



SECOND SOMME BATTLE 175 

crossings of the Crozat Canal had been maintained and others 
effected, so that this least formidable portion of the long line of 
valley and canal had to be abandoned. Its defenders, covered on 
their right by the Oise from La Fere to Noyon, fell back west- 
ward toward the Canal du Nord (Libermont section), which from 
the Oise at Noyon follows up one small marshy valley and down 
another to join the Somme west of Ham. 




Fig. 49 — The fortified summit of Mont Renaud, showing at the right how effect- 
ively it commands the valley of the Oise below. (French official photograph.) 

North of that portion of the Oise valley between La Fere and 
Noyon, and parallel to it, the long outlying strip of the Parisian 
plateau which we have called the Noyon massif interposed a 
wedge of wooded, difficult country between the enemy forces 
advancing westward down the valley toward Noyon and those 
operating north of it, in the country south of Ham. It now 
became apparent that these northern forces, instead of pushing 
westward, were facing south with the intention of attacking 
the Lassigny-Noyon massif, constituting the first line of the 
northern defense of Paris, and, by breaking through the Noyon 
gateway, gaining that part of the Oise valley which from here 
turns more nearly southward and forms a natural pathway to the 



176 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

capital. The forces advancing down-valley along the southern 
side of the massif would ensure the fall of that part of the ob- 
stacle northeast of Noyon by outflanking it from the south. 
The French had now taken over this part of the front and 
were vigorously defending the route to Paris. But neither 
north of the Noyon gateway through the massif, nor in the 
Oise valley south of it, could they stop the German drive. 
The massif was outflanked, the town of Noyon fell, and the 
French withdrew southward behind the Oise barrier, pivoting 
on the St. Gobain buttress, of which they held the south- 
western portion. 

Two miles southwest of Noyon the new French line crossed the 
river to reach Mont Renaud (Figs. 48 and 49), a small erosion 
remnant left standing in the valley and commanding a good view 
of the gateway through which the German hordes were pushing 
southward. Thence the line turned northwest along a northern 
outlier of the Lassigny massif called Porquericourt Mountain, 
which dominates the southern end of the Canal du Nord. The 
Oise valley-Mont Renaud-Lassigny massif was a formidable 
obstacle, and against it the Teuton armies hurled themselves 
in vain. For several days they delivered one attack after another 
against the Lassigny massif. An outlying mesa at Lagny was 
captured after a bloody struggle. Porquericourt Mountain was 
at last overrun, and the town of Lassigny taken; but five violent 
attacks on Mont Renaud during the single day of March 27 
were hurled back with heavy losses to the enemy; the valley 
of the Divette, a natural trench in front of the largest, of the 
plateau remnants to the west, could not be crossed; the north- 
western flank of the plateau, thrice assaulted in one day, with- 
stood all attacks. Nearly a week of terrific onslaughts netted 
the Teutons a bare foothold on the northern ramparts. The 
formidable bulk of the main massif was unshaken. Attempts 
to pass the Oise at Chauny and other points between the St. 
Gobain and Lassigny pillars were likewise failures. What 
some authorities believe constituted from the first a vital part 
of the German plan of campaign, an advance toward Paris 



SECOND SOMME BATTLE 177 

by the Oise valley route, was wrecked against the river-plateau 
barrier. 26 

After the loss of the Crozat Canal the defensive position 
of the Allied armies had consisted of the marshes, river, and canal 
in the valley of the Oise from south of La Fere westward to 
Mont Renaud; thence the tributary valleys of the Oise and 
Somme which carry the Canal du Nord from Noyon to the 
Somme, the southern end of this line being supported by the 
Lassigny massif; thence the main valley of the Somme with 
marshes, river, and canal to Peronne; thence the Tortille and 
Canal du Nord on northward. Even so early as March 22, 
when it was seen that heavy French reinforcements must be 
thrown into the battle to check the German onrush, General 
Fayolle received orders "to re-establish the situation, south of 
the parallel of Peronne, upon the line Peronne-Noyon." 

This line was, however, already seriously breached. The 
enemy bridgehead on the west side of the barrier near Pargny 
had been extended and Nesle captured. South of Nesle the 
Canal du Nord sector had been flanked, and the enemy was 
beating against the Lassigny massif west of it. At the northern 
end of the line the enemy had discovered a gap between the 
Vllth and Vth Corps, poured through it, and compelled the 
Vllth Corps to abandon the line of the Tortille. The situation 
on this sector of the front was extremely serious, and the Third 
Army, now comprising the troops north of the Somme, was 
ordered to retire its center to the next natural barrier west of 
the Tortille, the River Ancre. "There seemed every hope that 
the line of the Ancre would be secured and the enemy stopped 
north of the Somme." This hope was justified, and from Albert 
to Beaumont-Hamel the center of the Third Army about March 
26 took up a strong position behind the marshy trench from 
which it was never dislodged. Although the British in the con- 
fusion of the retreat first reached the line of the river without 
wire, bombs, and other necessary equipment, they were able 
with their rifles to hold much larger German forces at bay along 

26 La bataille de France de 1918, Rev. des Deux Monies, Vol. 46, 1918, pp. 241-302. 



178 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

the valley until their position could be strengthened. The Ger- 
mans got across the river at Albert but could not get up the west- 
ern valley wall. 

The westward advance of the Germans north of the Somme 
seriously threatened the flank and rear of the forces holding 
the north-south sector of the river from Peronne southward. At 
the same time the enemy bridgehead on the west bank of the 
Somme near Pargny had been deepened and broadened by vigor- 
ous attacks until a dangerous gap existed between the British 
XVIIIth and XlXth Corps. Outflanked on both sides, the 
troops holding the river from north of Pargny to Peronne were 
ordered to fall back over the level surface of the Santerre, their 
left flank and rear protected by the east-west portion of the 
Somme valley, which was defended by small, hastily improvised 
forces facing north along the barrier. The British next endeav- 
ored to hold a north-south line across the Santerre just west 
of Chaulnes. But this line was still several miles east of the 
British front north of the Somme , and therefore exposed to a 
flank attack by the Germans north of the river. The 350 men 
hurriedly detailed to hold this part of the Somme barrier were 
utterly inadequate to the task, and before they could be properly 
reinforced the Germans pushed over to the south bank, com- 
pelling a further retirement of the main British front. During 
this latter operation the line was so bent that for several miles it 
followed from east to west along the little valley of the Luce. 
The successful defense of this marshy stream, and of the im- 
portant bridge over it at Caix, by French and British forces, 
checked the enemy advance and secured the safety of several 
British divisions. The entire north-south belt of marsh, valley, 
and canal, extending in unbroken line across the Somme plain 
from the River Oise at Noyon to the River Scarpe northwest 
of Cambrai, had now passed into the hands of the Germans. 

West of the Lassigny massif there is a stretch of rolling plain 
trenched only by small ravines until the head of the Doms valley 
is reached, near Montdidier, some 12 miles away. North- 
westward from Montdidier the marshy valleys of the Doms 



SECOND SOMME BATTLE 179 

and Avre, with their partially wooded slopes, constitute a 
topographic obstacle of much importance — the first west of 
the Canal du Nord (Libermont section) to trend even approxi- 
mately north-south. The strength of this barrier is enormously 
enhanced by the fact that it is bordered on its southwestern side 
by the rising slopes of one of the anticlinal arches previously 
described (p. 96). Once established on these slopes the French 
would enjoy not only the protection of the river, but in addi- 
tion some of the advantages of commanding position possessed 
by the Germans on the slopes of the other arch during the 1 916 
Battle of the Somme. North of Moreuil the Avre valley turns 
farther toward the west and becomes more of a pathway to 
Amiens than a barrier protecting it. But the Montdidier-Moreuil 
sector is rightly to be considered an obstacle, which gains in 
significance because it is the strong western pillar of a strategic 
gateway open toward Paris, the eastern pillar of which is the 
Lassigny massif. 

As we have already seen, the Montdidier-Lassigny gateway 
is barred by no serious natural obstacle. One partially wooded 
Tertiary erosion remnant, the hill of Boulogne-la-Grasse, stands 
as a sentinel in the middle of the gap but does not effectively block 
it. Beyond, the way to Paris is dangerously inviting. It would, 
however, be a hazardous foe who should dare to pass through 
while the two strong lateral pillars were in enemy hands. Hence 
the strong efforts of the Germans to capture the Lassigny massif 
already mentioned, and the even more determined attempts to 
secure the Montdidier-Moreuil obstacle which must now be noted. 

The main valley of the Avre, above its junction with the Doms 
at Pierrepont, trends almost exactly east-west. It is marshy 
and wooded, but ordinarily one would hardly think of it as a 
barrier against troops moving westward, or even southwestward, 
more or less nearly parallel with its course. The line of the Doms- 
lower Avre, described above, was alone capable of effective de- 
fense against such an advance. Yet it was the valley of the Avre 
from its source near Roye westward to Pierrepont, thence north- 
west to Moreuil, behind which the French were ordered to stand 



1 80 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

in an effort to halt the Teuton drive. While the enemy was still 
well to the eastward, General Debeney arrived on the ground 
with the advance guard of his army, hastily called from the 
Lorraine front, and issued orders to organize, without delaying an 
hour, the south bank of the Avre between Roye and Pierrepont, 
and the west bank from Pierrepont to Moreuil. "Between Mo- 
reuil and Roye one must, at any price, attempt to defend the 
Avre." Evidently the French, who expected a drive toward 
Paris and who had just seen the westward-moving Germans turn 
south to fling themselves against the Noyon-Lassigny massif, 
feared a similar movement southward toward the Montdidier- 
Lassigny gateway. But conditions were here very different, for 
the Germans were already southeast of the Roye end of the bar- 
rier in great force. The error of trying to hold the east-west sec- 
tion of the Avre was quickly demonstrated. On March 27 the 
enemy advanced westward both north and south of the river, 
outflanked the whole line, and threw the defenders into confusion. 
At the cost of considerable losses a hasty retirement behind the 
Doms was effected, and Debeney issued a moving appeal to his 
men to hold that line a tout prix. Other troops were hurriedly 
despatched to close the Montdidier-Lassigny gateway, taking 
advantage of the strong point furnished by the isolated hill 
of Boulogne-la-Grasse. 

The storm now broke against the Doms-Avre barrier. In 
addition to the fourteen divisions originally launched on this 
narrow front, seven others were hurriedly transferred south 
from parts of the line as far north as Albert and Bapaume. 
In all 240,000 men delivered a terrific blow in the hope that the 
shock would fairly shatter the obstacle. 27 The heroic army of 
General Debeney was weak in numbers, not all of its forces having 
yet arrived in line. Their defenses were but partly organized. 
Nevertheless the natural strength of the terrain combined with 
the supernatural heroism of the devoted Frenchmen to render 
the position impregnable, even when attacked by greatly superior 
forces. The river barrier broke the shock of the initial onslaught. 

27 Rev. des Deux Mondes, Vol. 46, 1918, pp. 290-291. 



SECOND SOMME BATTLE 



181 



Montdidier and Moreuil fell, and the west side of its marshy 
valley was reached at a few points. But as many as seven 
furious attacks in succession were beaten off at other places. 
For three days the battle raged at white heat. Then followed 
several days of local struggles and preparations for a new grand 




^]20-40 



> 100m 



Fig. 50 — Battlefield of Villers-Bretonneux, showing 
plateaus forming eastern defenses of Amiens. (From 
British Geogr. Sect., Gen. Staff, 1:100,000 map.) 



attack, which was delivered on April 4. On this day "ten suc- 
cessive assaults in compact masses were to follow one another, 
formidable battering-ram blows by an enemy whom each check 
made furious." Two days longer the struggle raged. But the 
blow which the German high command had believed irresistible, 
had merely bent the line and forced it up the slopes beyond the 
river. The double strength of the barrier could not be over- 



182 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 







SECOND SOMME BATTLE 183 

come, and the Montdidier obstacle, like the Lassigny massif, 
remained unshaken. 

East of Amiens the British had checked the German advance 
across the Santerre on a north-south line just east of Villers- 
Bretonneux, on the battlefield where the Germans in 1870 had 
fought for the control of Amiens. The village of Villers-Bre- 
tonneux lies at the western extremity of a low, broad mound of 
the loam which has great tactical importance (Fig. 50). Anyone 
who walks out north of the village for a few hundred yards and 
faces westward will have before him such a panorama as few 
places on the Somme plain can offer. The towers of Amiens 
ten miles away down the valley are in full view, and all that 
length of the marshy Somme barrier that lies between. Portions 
of the Hallue, Ancre, and Luce valleys, to say nothing of parts 
of the Somme to the north and east (Fig. 51), are likewise domin- 
ated by this "plateau," as the British called it in recognition of its 
commanding importance. Southwest of it lies the "Gentelles pla- 
teau," 40 feet higher and nearer Amiens, and rimmed by scat- 
tered patches of woodland which appear to owe their existence, 
in part at least, to the presence of the cold, wet soil of the 
clay-flint formation which lies just below the loam here and 
outcrops on the higher slopes of the upland. 

Across the Luce valley, to the south, is the similar "Moreuil 
plateau," already held by the Germans and from which they 
directed a deadly fire upon the Gentelles upland. If the British 
could be driven from the Villers-Bretonneux plateau, Gentelles 
plateau, attacked from the south, east, and north, could be ren- 
dered untenable, and the Germans would have "kicked the 
British into the hole" formed by the valley junctions below. 
Amiens would be under artillery fire controlled by direct ob- 
servation, would certainly be destroyed, and could probably 
be taken. The three plateaus were in fact highly important 
natural defenses of the city. Moreover, they would give the 
Germans an excellent view of all movements in the British 
back areas to the west and north and would conceal the German 
back areas from British observation. 



184 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

As soon as the Germans recovered breath from their long 
pursuit of the British, they launched, on April 24, a violent 
attack on Villers-Bretonneux with four divisions supported by 
fifteen tanks. Practically all of the plateau and part of the Bois 
l'Abbe on the northern side of the Gentelles upland were captured. 
For a few hours the fate of Amiens hung in the balance. But this 
was the high-water mark of the German advance over the 
Somme plain. That night the invincible Australians, responding 
magnificently to the critical situation, hurled the Germans back 
to the east. The important western half of Villers-Bretonneux 
plateau was recaptured, Gentelles plateau was disengaged, 
effective observation and artillery control were denied to the 
Germans, and Amiens, "the key to the communications system 
linking the French front with the British front," was saved. 
Later the whole of the Villers-Bretonneux plateau was cleared of 
the enemy. 

It is significant that the gently rolling plain of this region, 
which in the 1916 Battle of the Somme had witnessed the first 
use of tanks in warfare and in the 1917 Battle of Cambrai ths 
first employment of tanks as a major offensive weapon, should 
in this 1918 Battle of Villers-Bretonneux witness the first occa- 
sion on which the Germans brought tanks into the battle line 
and the first use of the light, swift British whippet tanks. 

In its final form the great salient produced by the German 
offensive had its southern side along the Oise valley for some 
15 miles and along the Lassigny massif for nearly 10 miles; 
its apex along the Doms-Avre barrier for 15 miles; and its 
western side along the Ancre valley for 7 or 8 miles. At the 
southeast it pivoted on the St. Gobain buttress, which was 
shared by the opposing armies; but in the north it had no 
solid support on the German side, all of the old Vimy buttress 
remaining securely in British hands. To remedy this situation 
the Germans were already attacking the Arras sector with 
tremendous force. 

We have seen that the valleys of the Somme region, with their 
rivers, marshes, and canals, played a very significant role in the 



SECOND SOMME BATTLE 185 

third great struggle of the war on this historic battlefield. But 
it may be asked why these barriers, and particularly the one 
stretching from Noyon northward to the region of Cambrai 
with the Somme above Peronne as its central bulwark, did not 
serve to check the German drive. The answer is not in doubt. 
They were not properly organized as defensive lines. Napoleon's 
dictum that "the natural positions commonly met with are in- 
sufficient to shelter an army from another that is more numerous, 
without the aid of art," cannot be too often repeated. Full 
advantage of the opportunities for defense offered by the valley 
trenches could only be secured by clearing trees and other ob- 
stacles which might shelter an approaching enemy from as 
much as possible of the field of fire on the eastern banks, by 
making adequate preparations for the complete destruction of 
all bridges, by combining with the natural moat a proper system 
of artificial trenches, and by all the other measures which a 
wise prevision must dictate. And the lines thus organized must 
be adequately manned; for no natural position will hold itself. 
In the present instance none of these necessary measures were 
properly executed. Although the line of the Somme had been 
in Allied hands for a year, the fringe of trees and underbrush 
bordering the stream had not been removed from the eastern 
bank, and during the defense of the valley it "afforded good 
cover to the enemy, and limited the field of fire of the defenders." 28 
The destruction of the bridges was very imperfect, and at many 
points the Germans crossed river or canal on structures which 
should have afforded no footing. Conan Doyle 29 attributes 
the incomplete demolition in part to deterioration of the charges 
of explosives after the bridges had been mined and prepared for 
destruction by the French, and in part to a transfer of the 
work of destroying railway bridges from the control of the 
army, with the result that the work was poorly done and these 
bridges remained to weaken the defensive value of rivers and 
canals. Sir Douglas Haig emphasizes the effect of hostile artil- 

28 Haig's Despatches, p. 201. 

29 A. Conan Doyle: The British Campaign in France and Flanders: 1918, 
Vol. s, London, 1919. 



186 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

lery fire in blowing up some of the charges stored near the bridges 
ready for use at the last moment and in cutting the leads of others. 

As for defensive works to strengthen the natural barriers 
behind the British front, little seems to have been done. Per- 
haps it was assumed that the Germans would not again attempt 
to secure a region which they had voluntarily abandoned, al- 
though such a belief would seem well-nigh impossible in view of 
the long-continued preparations for an offensive which had been 
observed behind this part of the German front. Nevertheless it 
has been claimed that many of the British commanders con- 
sidered the long-heralded German offensive as mere "bluff." The 
excuse that too much of the distasteful work of trench digging 
injures the fighting power of an army is not wholly convincing 
when the safety of the army and the victory of a just cause, to 
say nothing of the lives of the men themselves, may depend more 
on "digging in" than on using firearms. Napoleon's castigation 
of the disinclination to entrench is worth repeating: "Both 
officers and privates dislike handling the pick-axe and spade; 
they therefore strive to outdo one another in echoing and repeat- 
ing such notions as these: 'Field fortifications are more injurious 
than useful ; there ought to be none constructed ; victory belongs 
to him who marches, advances, and maneuvers; the soldier 
ought not to work; is not war attended with fatigue enough?' — 
Flattering, yet despicable arguments!" 

When threatened with overwhelming disaster the British, 
"with their backs to the wall," did dig in magnificently. Within 
a few months of the time they were pushed back to the gates 
of Amiens, they had dug five thousand miles of new trenches; 
and a high officer of engineers gave it as his opinion that the 
mere sight of so formidable a system of defenses in the chalk 
country discouraged the Germans from ever again attempting 
a serious blow at Amiens. Certain it is that whereas this officer 
admitted the British were too weak in numbers properly to man 
so elaborate a system of trenches as that prepared in the Amiens 
sector, where the next German blow was expected — a numerical 
weakness which is emphasized by the British Commander-in- 



SECOND SOMME BATTLE 187 

Chief In his despatch of December 21, 19 18 — the German high 
command got the idea that this front was held in great strength; 
and Ludendorff gives this as one reason for abandoning the plan 
of an advance in the Somme area. Although at the time of 
Ludendorff's decision the defensive network was necessarily 
far from completed, it is probable that the elaborate system of 
partially excavated trenches would, by turning out on the ground 
the white chalk which lies close to the surface about Amiens, give 
an appearance of strength which actually did not exist. How- 
ever that may be, had even a part of the labor expended in 
organizing the Amiens front been utilized in strengthening the 
north-south line of the Somme during the year it was in British 
hands, it is permissible to suppose that the big German push of 
March 21, 1918, might have been halted along that barrier. Di- 
rect comparison between the two cases is of course impossible, for 
the Amiens defenses constituted the forward zone of their period, 
whereas work on a secondary line like that of the Somme was nec- 
essarily subordinated totheneedsof the forward zone of that time. 
Whether or not the failure adequately to fortify the natural 
defensive positions of the Somme plain was justified by con- 
ditions known to the British Commander-in-Chief, we are here 
chiefly concerned with the fact that they were not so fortified ; and 
hence that no criticism of the value of topographic barriers can 
be based on failure to check the Germans along those lines. 
We do learn of a general of engineers being sent back hurriedly 
to organize as well as possible the line of the Somme below 
Peronne, after the crash had come. But the time to undertake 
that task was in the preceding twelve months, not during a 
forced retreat. Sir Douglas Haig admits that "practically no 
work had been carried out with the object of securing the line 
of the River Somme" and gives as a reason the limited amount 
of labor available, all labor units that could be used in rear of 
the forward defensive zones having been allotted to the con- 
struction of the Peronne bridgehead defenses. 30 As we have 
seen, these defenses had to be abandoned without a fight, and 

30 Haig's Despatches, pp. 195, 217. 



i88 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

the attempt to check the enemy was actually made on the 
unorganized line of the river. 

Finally, the number of men detailed for the defense of the 
Somme barriers was inadequate. The British Commander-in- 
Chief explains in some detail the circumstances which caused him, 
when advised of the impending German offensive, to concen- 
trate his forces on other parts of his front and deliberately to 
assume the risk of having to yield ground in the Somme plain. 
And, while the advisability of making a determined stand on 
the line of the Somme River was debated during the first days 
of the retreat, it was decided that the reserves of fresh troops 
necessary to hold that line could not be brought up to it in 
time to check the enemy there. Ludendorff states that the left 
wing of his Second Army was "more delayed by having to cross 
the Somme than by the enemy." 31 A barrier insufficiently 
manned could at best only hold the enemy in check long enough 
to secure the orderly retreat of the defenders to another position 
farther back. 

The Second Battle of the Somme gained for the Germans a 
vast area of the Somme plain, nearly 40 miles broad at the 
point of deepest penetration; brought prestige to German arms 
and hope to the German people; and profoundly discouraged 
the peoples of the Entente. But it failed to separate the French 
and British armies; it greatly lengthened the German line 
and reformed it into a dangerous salient; and, worst of all 
for the German cause, it forced the Allies to use common sense. 
Foch was appointed generalissimo five days after the Germans 
had smashed through the British front. 

The Fourth Battle of Vimy Ridge 
The German offensive in the west, on which the hope of 
victory was based, was soon being cramped and hindered by 
the Arras-Vimy bastion. Not until that formidable obstacle 
had been conquered would the armies immediately to the south 
have elbow room to develop their advance. Nor was it possible 

31 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 231. 



FOURTH VIMY BATTLE 189 

to press on to Amiens and beyond so long as the rear of the 
forces advancing down the Somme was threatened by an Allied 
attack launched from the Arras region. Accordingly, on March 
28, the German Seventeenth Army was hurled against the but- 
tress which blocked the way to victory. Ludendorff states 
that the principal objective was "to capture the decisive heights 
[Vimy Ridge] east and north of Arras; the next day the Sixth 
Army was to prolong the attack from about Lens and carry 
the high ground in that area [the Notre Dame de Lorette heights, 
forming the northwestern continuation of Vimy Ridge]. I 
attached the greatest importance to both these attacks." 32 
Neither in the plain of the Somme nor in the plain of Flanders 
could the Germans push very far west until the ArrasA/imy 
bastion had been captured. 

Nature had endowed the Arras region with a topography 
which well fitted it to play the role of an impregnable bulwark 
in the Allied line. We have already seen that north of the town 
Vimy Ridge trends from northwest to southeast. South of 
the town the streams flowing down the northeast slope of the 
anticlinal arch — the Sensee, Cojeul, Crinchon, Gy, and their 
branches — give a succession of ridges and valleys trending from 
southwest to northeast. Arras lies just within the angle formed 
by the intersection of these two topographic systems. With 
its labyrinth of subterranean caverns the city strengthened the 
apex of the eastward-pointing bastion. The British had so 
shaped their defensive works as to take advantage of the strong 
natural features constituting its sides. Hence their trench 
system, guided by the elements of the terrain, also formed an 
angle the apex of which was directed eastward (Fig. 52). This 
was the strongest point in the whole British line. 

The Germans made a tremendous effort to storm the bastion. 
German infantry advanced almost shoulder to shoulder in 
six successive waves and were supported by a bombardment 
of the utmost violence. But the excellent observation from 
the higher ground, for which the Allies had paid so dearly, now 

32 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 237. 



190 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 




]20-40m |||f 40-70m j^^ 70-10 Dm HHpO-flOm gg||l30-l60m : 
Fig. 52 — For explanation see bottom of opposite page. 



l60-200m 



FOURTH VIMY BATTLE 191 

demonstrated its value. British artillery, controlled by direct 
observation, decimated the enemy forces as they concentrated 
for the attack and during their advance, while machine guns 
in favorable positions and field guns brought- forward close to 
the British front line completed the slaughter. "In spite of 
employing extraordinary masses of artillery and ammunition, 
the attack was a failure," admits Ludendorff. And failure here 
was nothing short of disaster. "A German success in this sec- 
tor," writes Sir Douglas Haig, "might well have had far-reaching 
effects. There is little doubt that the enemy hoped to achieve 
great results by this new stroke and that its failure was a serious 
setback to his plans." The German line bulged westward 
on the south and was soon to bulge westward on the north. 
But these bulges were necessarily limited so long as the bastion 
between held firm. Against its impregnable point the German 
armies suffered a rude and decisive check. They tried in vain to 
crush in its strong sides. Failing this, they gave up the struggle 
on the whole front north of the Aisne, and turned despairingly to 
another sector in the vain search for a decisive success. 

On April 6, in the southeastern corner of the Somme battle- 
field, the Germans attacked the French on the line of the Oise 
between La Fere and Chauny and pushed south over the western 
edge of the St. Gobain massif, where they had lost a little ground 
after the retreat to the Hindenburg Line, to the valley of 
the Ailette carrying the Oise-Aisne Canal. Here their advance 
was halted. The operation put the entire St. Gobain massif 
and its surrounding moat again in German hands and thus 

Fig. 52 — Some of the major topographic elements utilized in constructing the 
defenses of the Arras bastion, showing the northwest-southeast trend of the Notre 
Dame de Lorette-Vimy Ridge crest and the southwest-northeast trend of ridges 
and valleys farther south. Note that the two systems meet at an angle near Arras- 
(From the Lens sheet of the contour map of northern France and Belgium, 1 : 100,000, 
by the Geographical Section of the General Staff, London, 1016.) 

Solid lines show important ridge crests; broken lines show ridge slopes or outlying 
foothills important for observation and defense along lines parallel to the main crest, 
although erosion has made cross ridges and ravines more apparent; dotted lines 
show some principal drainage lines. The defensive system was controlled by these 
features of the terrain, even where trenches did not follow ridges or valleys con- 
tinuously. 



192 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

gave more solid support to the long southern side of the salient 
resulting from the push towards Amiens. Three days later 
Ludendorff started his westward push in the plain of Flanders 
(p. 77) which was to fail because the Arras-Vimy bastion 
on one side and the Mont Kemmel bastion on the other held 
firm. In June a short-lived offensive would give him practically 
full possession of the Lassigny massif but lead to no important 
results. His last great efforts to achieve victory were to be made 
on an entirely different terrain, in part because secret preparation 
and a surprise attack alone now promised any chance of success; 
and, as Ludendorff himself tells us, the open plain of the Somme 
"afforded too little cover for the necessary preliminary work." 

The Third Battle cf the Somme 
The months which followed the German push across the 
Somme plain to the eastern defenses of Amiens witnessed not 
only the enemy offensive In the plain of Flanders referred to 
above, but his successful break-through at the Chemin des 
Dames, the collapse of his final offensive on the Marne, and the 
launching of the Allied counterblow which was to achieve 
complete victory under the supreme command of Marshal 
Foch. By August the time was ripe for Haig's main army to 
participate actively in the Allied offensive. The Germans saw 
the new storm coming and in the first days of the month paid 
a tribute to the defensive value of natural obstacles by with- 
drawing from the region they occupied southwest of the Avre val- 
ley and from their very limited holdings west of the Ancre, and by 
taking up positions behind those two barriers of river and marsh. 
On the 8th of the month the British, to use their own expres- 
sive phrase, "kicked off" from the eastern end of the Villers- 
Bretonneux plateau. Ludendorff's expression had a different 
ring: "August 8 was the black day of the German Army 
in the history of this war." 33 The vital railway junction at Amiens 
was under long-range artillery fire, and one effect of an advance 
at this point would be to disengage it completely and to free 

33 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 326. 



THIRD SOMME BATTLE 193 

the main Paris-Amiens railway from enemy interference. The 
advancing forces would be protected on their left flank by the 
marshes of the middle Somme (Fig. 41), while in front of them 
there was only the smooth surface of the Santerre, almost devoid 
of serious natural obstacles until the marshy valley of the upper 
Somme, above Peronne, should be encountered. The attack, 
launched in a fog without warning but accompanied by intense 
artillery fire and by the use of great numbers of tanks, for which 
the ground was most favorable, was immediately successful; 
and before nightfall the indomitable Canadians and Australians 
had advanced six or seven miles over the smooth terrain. 

One hour after the British had launched their attack, the 
French First Army assaulted the Doms-Avre barrier immediately 
to the south. The obstacle was passed in a few places under 
conditions not dissimilar to those which aided the Germans in 
their passage of the Oise barrier on the 21st of March preceding, 
a dense fog preventing adequate defense of the crossings. Of 
still greater advantage was the fact that on the north the British 
advance aided the outflanking of the Avre line, and French 
troops filtering eastward along the couloir of the Luce could 
compel the evacuation of Moreuil; while at the south a flanking 
operation could be carried around the head of the Doms valley, 
thus making Montdidier untenable. Both operations were 
successful, and the line of the Doms-Avre, threatened at the 
rear from both ends, was precipitately abandoned by the Ger- 
mans. Farther east the French Third Army next tried to 
outflank the Lassigny massif (which had been conquered by the 
Germans in their June 9 offensive) by passing around its 
western side and capturing the town of Lassigny. This opera- 
tion, supported by a painful and costly advance over the massif 
itself and across the borders of the Parisian plateau east of it, 
was eventually to deprive the Germans of their hold on the 
entire Lassigny-Noyon massif and throw them back on the 
St. Gobain buttress, but only after the attacking forces had 
been aided by the Allied advance north of the massif and had 
themselves made the heaviest sacrifices. 



194 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

By the evening of the 12 th the Germans, pivoting on the 
Noyon-Lassigny buttress, had fallen back on their old north- 
south line of defense, the key to which, as we have seen, was 
Chaulnes, situated on one of the low isolated Tertiary mounds 
(p. 121) and guarding an important railway junction. Here the 
Germans put up such a stiff resistance that the British Command- 
er-in-Chief decided to break off the battle and shift his attack to 
a sector north of the Somme. Chaulnes did not fall into the 
hands of the Allies until two weeks later. 

Foch looked forward to the probability of encountering even 
stiffer German resistance along the natural barrier of the upper 
Somme, and directed an attack in the direction of Bapaume- 
Peronne which "would have for consequence the outflanking 
of the defense which the enemy would offer along the Somme 
and force him to a more or less general retreat." 34 Sir Douglas 
Haig chose the terrain between Albert and Arras for launching 
the attack, and states among the reasons for this selection the 
facts that "the ground . . . was suitable for the use of tanks," 
and "this attack, moreover, would be rendered easier by the fact 
that we now held the commanding plateau south of Arras about 
Bucquoy and Ablainzevelle," a spur of the anticlinal arch which 
played so significant a role in the 1916 Battle of the Somme. 
As the attack developed the forces operating at the north of 
the line would use "the River Sensee to cover their left, in the 
same way as the River Somme had been used to cover the left 
of the Fourth Army in the Battle of Amiens." 35 

The attack was a success, but in places encountered great 
difficulties. The marshy valley of the Ancre, backed by the 
dominating heights of the Thiepval plateau, opposed a serious 
obstacle to the troops advancing on the right. "The Fifth 
Corps, under General Shute, followed the curve of the River 
Ancre on a front of 9,000 yards. . . It had no tanks, since 
the marshy valley and sluggish stream lay before it, . . . this 

34 Louis Madelin: La bataille de France, 21 mars-11 novembre, 1918, Rev. des 
Deux Mondes, Vol. 52, 1919, pp. 798-853; Vol. 53, 1919, PP- 59-99, 270-310, 533- 
569, 785-828; Vol. 54, 1919, pp. 64-108, 314-363; reference in Vol. 53, P- SSO. 

55 Haig's Despatches, p. 264. 



THIRD SOMME BATTLE 195 

evil watercourse which had been flooded by the Germans and 
was 300 yards wide at one part. All bridges were gone, and 
the banks were low and boggy. The main stream was over 
6 feet deep, and its channel could not be distinguished from 
the general flood. The whole morass was covered by a tangle 
of fallen trees, reeds, and artificial obstruction. . . The west 
bank was so overlooked that no one could move unscathed." 36 

Undismayed by the apparently impregnable barrier the 
dauntless British soldiers waded breast-deep through the waters 
under heavy fire and assaulted the heights to the east. Their 
task, which might otherwise have been impossible, was rendered 
easier by a concentric attack on that part of the arch east of 
the Ancre, delivered from the northwest and southwest by 
troops which had outflanked the main part of the barrier oppo- 
site the Thiepval plateau. Miraumont, in the upper Ancre 
valley, resisted for three days, but was finally captured. Difficult 
as was the taking of the Ancre position, it would certainly 
have proved even more costly had not a Prussian division 
(known to be of poor quality and hence given part of the river 
front to hold because of the protective value of marsh and 
stream) refused to fight, thereby throwing the whole line into 
confusion. 37 The crest of the anticlinal arch, which was taken 
by frontal attacks in the First Battle of the Somme, was much 
more easily secured by an advance parallel with its axis in this 
Third Battle of the Somme. 

On the 26th of August the Germans south of the middle 
Somme began falling back to the north-south line of the Canal 
du Nord-upper Somme between Noyon and Peronne, the 
first strong natural barrier behind their former front, and which 
Ludendorff calls the "Kanal-Stellung." In electing to stand 
on this line Ludendorff gave much weight to the protection it 
would afford against tank attacks. Marsh-girt Peronne with its 
guardian Mont St. Quentin (p. 155) was the buttress upon which 
the northern end of this sector of the enemy's new front was 

83 Conan Doyle, The British Campaign: 1918, Vol. 6, p. 82. 
87 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 342. 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 




THIRD SOMME BATTLE 197 

based. Its capture was essential, if the line was to be turned 
from the north. An attempt to force the river in front of Mont 
St. Quentin was a failure. The flooded valley, defended by heavy 
machine-gun fire, could not be negotiated. As the Tortille 
was a smaller obstacle, the Australian infantry selected for 
the attack were taken back to a point 4 miles west of Peronne 
and moved over the River Somme where its east-to-west course 
was under Allied control. Advancing again north of the river, 
the Australians forced the Tortille and stormed the mountain 
from the northwest, while the defenders were engaged with a 
portion of the forces directly in their front. The struggle was 
extremely violent, for the Germans fought tenaciously and 
counterattacked repeatedly, in order to hold this "most important 
tactical feature commanding Peronne and the crossings of the 
Somme at that town." In the opinion of the British Commander- 
in-Chief, "the fighting was exceptionally severe, and the taking 
of the position ranks as a most gallant achievement." The 
capture of Peronne quickly followed. Despite the loss of this 
critical point, the Germans continued to maintain their position 
behind the Somme-Canal du Nord obstacle between Peronne 
and Noyon for some days; and in the meantime their forces 
farther north took their stand behind the Tortille-Canal du 
Nord line from Peronne on northward, to Ytres at the northern 
end of the Tortille valley. Thus for a second time this striking 
north-south barrier (Fig. 53) determined the battle front of the 
contesting armies. 

A new attack, designed to dislodge the enemy from this 
position, was already under way. Striking eastward from the 
Arras bastion, the British forces assaulted the German position 
at Monchy-le-Preux. As we have already seen (p. 165), this 
position "was one of great natural strength, well organized for 
defense, and commanded observation of much importance." 
Once before the British had overcome its resistance at great 
cost, only to lose it during the later German advance. Now 
they had to pay the price a second time. Fortunately the Ger- 
mans did not fight with the vigor of former days. The position 



198 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

was stormed, and, pushing on across the parallel ridges and 
ravines descending the northeast slope of the anticlinal arch, 
which were skillfully utilized as defensive lines to retard the 
British advance, the attacking forces smashed the main German 
Drocourt-Queant line of resistance facing the Arras bastion. 
This line was one of the strong positions on the western front 
and, because of the skill with which its defenses were adapted 
to the topography, entitled to rank with the Hindenburg Line, 
of which it was a northern continuation. When it collapsed, 
the German commanders ordered their troops in this section 
to fall back eastward on the Canal du Nord-Agache River line, 
and northward on the line of the Sensee River marshes, where 
they raised the water level by opening the sluices and by damming 
a tributary brook, thus converting the valley into a lake. By 
September 9 the British faced a continuous river, lake, canal, and 
marsh barrier 20 miles long, from Havrincourt to near Lecluse, 
behind which the Germans had sought protection. This was 
a part of the famous Siegfried Line, the position of which had 
in this sector been determined by the natural obstacles men- 
tioned. It will thus be seen that the Agache River forming 
the western side of Caesar's Camp (Fig. 42) was again in use. 

In the Bertincourt-Havrincourt sector the Canal du Nord 
offsets sharply to the east (PI. II), taking advantage of the 
east-west valley of the small Exuette River. As a result, the 
advance of British forces to the northern section of the canal 
line would outflank German troops holding the Tortille valley 
section farther to the south and west, as well as those holding 
the continuation of that line along the Somme valley above 
Peronne. The defense of the Somme had already been compro- 
mised by the poor behavior of several German divisions, and in 
the face of a new threat the defenders, between the 4th and 8th 
of September, abandoned the whole of the Tortille-Somme-Canal 
du Nord line from the head of the Tortille southward and fell 
back toward the next valley-and-canal barrier to the east. 

The high defensive value which the Germans attached to 
lines of rivers, marshes, and canals, was never more clearly 



THIRD SOMME BATTLE 199 

evidenced than during this retreat. The intervention of the 
tank as a major offensive weapon had given a new and increased 
importance to these topographic features. Massive barbed wire 
defenses (Fig. 47), to which the German infantryman had once 
trusted for protection, were easily smashed through by the 
ponderous machines, and the whole German army was now 
suffering acutely from "tank fright." Ludendorff avows that 
mass attacks by tanks under cover of artificial fog were now his 
most dangerous enemy, 38 while Sir Douglas Haig reports that 
"so great has been the effect produced upon the German infantry 
by the appearance of British tanks that in more than one in- 
stance, when for various reasons real tanks were not available 
in sufficient numbers, valuable results have been obtained by 
the use of dummy tanks painted on frames of wood and canvas." 39 
The German commanders reasoned that since wire might stop 
men but could not stop tanks, whereas water would stop tanks 
but might not stop men, the only safe line of defense consisted 
of a strongly wired position covered in front by river, canal, 
or marsh (Fig. 53). Hence arose the saying, so frequently heard 
during the last months of the war: "The boches are trying to 
get behind water." 

At the south the French, both by direct assault and by a 
flanking movement, gradually pressed the enemy back over 
the Lassigny-Noyon massif to and beyond the Crozat Canal, 
capturing the outlying fort forming part of the western defenses 
of La Fere. Ludendorff placed great confidence in the strength 
of the canal line with its associated marshes and valleys. "It 
would no doubt have been possible to keep the left wing of the 
Eighteenth Army ... on the Crozat Canal, but that re- 
quired more men than the defense of the St. Quentin-La 
Fere line, with the broad valley of- the Oise in front of it." 40 
So the German front in the south was withdrawn behind the 
marshes of the Oise. At the north the enemy still stood behind 
the Sensee marshes and the Agache River-Canal du Nord line 

38 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 340. 

39 Haig's Despatches, p. 302. 

40 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 346. 



200 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

as far as Havrincourt, a peculiarly difficult position to take, 
especially as the smooth slopes of the valley leading down to 
the canal were open and effectively swept by German machine- 
gun fire. From Havrincourt on south to the Oise the enemy 
had retreated close to his main line of resistance, the Hinden- 
burg Line, which crossed the hills from Havrincourt to the 
Scheldt valley 8 miles south of Cambrai, then followed the great 
Scheldt River-Scheldt Canal-Somme River-St. Quentin Canal 
barrier to St. Quentin. 

The strength of this line fully justified the repute in which 
it was held. The entanglements were of the most formidable 
character, broad belts of rigid iron posts closely set and intri- 
cately woven with extremely heavy barbed wire (Fig. 47), 
while the open space in front was swept by machine-gun fire 
directed from heavily armored concrete "pill boxes" skillfully 
concealed in the trench system (Fig. 54). Instead of being a 
single line of entanglements defending the usual trenches, the 
so-called "Line" was a zo::e 4 to 6 miles wide composed of a 
network of the heavily wired trenches linking up the town 
and village fortresses and their subterranean caverns in the 
chalk, and supplemented by numerous concrete fortifications. 
But the peculiar strength of the barrier, as already noted, lay 
in the remarkable skill with which the defenses were sited so as 
to take advantage of the natural features of the terrain. Not 
only did they command every approach by grazing fire across 
smooth, cleared ground, but they were in addition so disposed 
across the plain as to prevent the Allied artillery from obtaining 
any positions from which to bring an effective fire to bear upon 
them. The upper valleys of the Somme and Scheldt, which are 
followed by the canal system and which determined the general 
position of the Hindenburg Line in this region, were utilized 
as a natural fosse, to the west of which were the advanced de- 
fenses, including one or two of the continuous lines of trenches 
and heavy wire, while the double line of wired trenches, some- 
times called "the Hindenburg Line proper" lay behind the canal 
to the east. 



THIRD SOMME BATTLE 201 

On the Somme-Scheldt drainage divide there is a break in 
the surface barrier, but the tunnel in the chalk which carries 
the canal from one valley to the other was turned to good ac- 
count, serving as shelter for large bodies of troops who could 
reach their trenches above by shafts driven for that purpose. 
The open canal added materially to the shelter from enemy 




Fig. 54 — Partially destroyed concrete machine-gun shelter in a trench of the 
Hindenburg Line southeast of Arras. From this shelter a deadly grazing fire swept 
the exposed surface of the barren Somme plain* 



fire naturally afforded by the valley depressions, and in its steep 
walls, as well as in the valley sides, were constructed numberless 
dugouts and concrete shelters. Machine guns in armored em- 
placements at the tops of the walls could sweep the approaches 
on the western side and the great trench itself in case it were 
entered by the enemy. Subways connected the valley-canal 
trench with the wired defenses east and west of it. For con- 
venience one usually speaks of "the line of the canal;" but it 
should not be forgotten that, as Sir Douglas Haig has so well 
pointed out, it was not so much the artificial canal itself as the 



202 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

skillful use of the topographic features associated with it which 
gave to the Hindenburg Line its great strength. 

Such was the well-nigh impregnable belt of intricately com- 
bined natural obstacles, artificial waterway, and newly executed 
military works behind which the badly beaten and much de- 
pressed German armies had sought protection and along which 
they held at bay for the moment their victorious pursuers. But 
the Hindenburg barrier had a greater significance than serving 
as a line of defense for the Kaiser's field armies. Back of it 
lay the railway cordon skirting the southern and western base 
of the Ardennes Mountains and passing through Maubeuge, 
Hirson, Mezieres, and Sedan to connect the northern group of 
German armies on the western front with the southern group. 
From this central artery there branched out to the south and west 
the lines feeding the German front in Champagne, on the Marne 
plateau, and in the Somme plain. The Allied plan of campaign 
involved concerted blows at this vital railway artery, the British 
striking for the Maubeuge sector, the French and Americans 
at Mezieres and Sedan. If the railway were cut the two groups 
of German armies would be separated, and one group forced 
back along the northern side of the Ardennes, the other along 
the southern side, with no effective lateral communication 
between them across the intervening mountain wedge. The 
Hindenburg Line was the most formidable barrier protecting 
the railway artery from the British blow. If that barrier were 
breached the whole German front would be endangered, while 
the political effect produced among the peoples of the Central 
Powers by the collapse of their strongest defensive position would 
be most far-reaching. 

Local engagements having cleared the enemy from important 
outpost positions such as the Holnon Wood elevation west 
of St. Quentin, the way was cleared for a decisive attack on 
the main barrier of the Sensee River-Agache River-Canal 
du Nord-Hindenburg Line (Scheldt River and Canal-Somme 
River and Canal-Oise River and Canal). The Agache River- 
Canal du Nord sector west of Cambrai was attacked first on 



THIRD SOMME BATTLE 203 

September 27. Near the head of the Agache valley in the 
vicinity of Moeuvres the canal is the only serious obstacle to 
be encountered until Bourlon Wood some two miles farther east 
is reached. But downstream to the north the valley carrying 
the canal deepens and broadens and becomes marshy. The 
British Commander-in-Chief decided that "the northern portion 
of the canal was too formidable an obstacle to be crossed in 
the face of the enemy. It was therefore necessary for the 
attacking divisions to force a passage on a comparatively narrow 
front about Moeuvres, and thereafter turn the line of the canal 
farther north by a divergent attack developed fan-wise from the 
point of crossing." This was a very difficult maneuver, especially 
as the wooded height of Bourlon lay on the central axis of the 
advance and commanded ground to the north and south across 
which the diverging forces must pass. It was aided by the fact 
that the canal in this sector was dry as a result of the blowing 
up of the gates. 

The maneuver was successful, but only after a bitter struggle 
where the crossings of the canal were forced. In the dim light 
of early dawn the attacking troops rushed down one wall and 
clambered up the other to capture the machine guns and for- 
ward field guns sweeping the depression. The engineers worked 
under heavy fire to bridge the obstacle, and to their gallantry 
and skill the favorable results achieved are in part attributed. 
When the fan-wise movement was threatening the defenders 
of the Agache line farther north, a single division succeeded in 
forcing a passage there; while the capture of Bourlon hill by 
Canadian troops, and of Flesquieres ridge next south of it, 
assured the advantage of commanding observation to the 
British, and drove the Germans back behind the marshes of 
the Scheldt valley south of Cambrai. An attempt to cross the 
Sensee marshes and capture Arleux, guarding a historic defile 
through the morass where Marlborough had passed before, 
failed. The Germans had turned much of the valley into a lake 
by damming back the waters of the Sensee and one of its branches 
called the Trinquis. While this protected the Germans from 



204 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

an attack toward the north, it was an act which fitted exactly 
with the plan of operations of the British; since it was their 
purpose to use the Sensee barrier as protection for their left 
flank while advancing eastward across the Agache and Canal 
du Nord. 

The front of attack was now greatly broadened, and on Sep- 
tember 28 and 29 the whole line of the Scheldt valley and Scheldt 
Canal-Somme valley and St. Quentin Canal, from Cambrai to 
St. Quentin, was violently assaulted. A heavy bombardment, 
continued without intermission for two days, drove the defenders 
into their subterranean cellars, dugouts, and tunnels, and cut 
off their supplies of food and ammunition. Tanks crushed down 
the wire entanglements west of the canal and aided the advance 
of the infantry to the main barrier. Then the struggle for the 
canal and the Hindenburg defenses east of it began. 

North of St. Quentin the canal crosses from the main Somme 
valley into the upper valley of the Omignon, a tributary to the 
Somme, through the Tronquoy tunnel; follows west down one 
branch of that tributary to the village of Bellenglise, then north 
up another branch to Bellicourt, where it enters the long tunnel 
under the main Somme-Scheldt divide already referred to. 
Bellenglise thus occupied the apex of a valley salient followed 
by the canal. "Equipped with life belts and carrying mats 
and rafts, the 46th Division stormed the western arm of the 
canal at Bellenglise and to the north of it, some crossing the 
canal on footbridges which the enemy was given no time to 
destroy, others dropping down the sheer sides of the canal 
wall and, having swum or waded to the far side, climbing up 
the farther wall to the German trench lines on the eastern 
bank." Tanks could not, of course, be used. The gallantry 
and skill with which this part of the difficult barrier was over- 
come is the subject of special praise from the British Com- 
mander-in-Chief in the despatch from which the foregoing 
quotation is taken. 41 An effective word picture of the heroic 
feat is painted by Conan Doyle, who describes the smooth sur- 

41 Haig's Despatches, pp. 282, 283. 



THIRD SOMME BATTLE 205 

face of the canal for a mile or more dotted with the heads of 
the English infantry, their officers trailing ropes behind them 
as they swam, while cables, broken bridges, extempore rafts, 
and leaking beats were pressed into service. 42 On the right of 
the 46th an American division gained that part of the valley 
and canal near Bellicourt and carried the higher land to the east. 
Thus a serious breach was opened in the Hindenburg Line 
just north cf St. Quentin. 

South of Cambrai a second breach was effected after a costly 
struggle. Here the valley of the Scheldt, with its river and the 
canal, proved an almost insuperable obstacle, just as it had done 
in the 1917 Battle of Cambrai. When the Germans were driven 
from their advanced defenses west of the valley, they fell back 
to the eastern side of the barrier. One division after another 
of the attacking troops flung itself against the position only to 
find crossing impossible, or else to discover that a precarious 
hold on the eastern side could not be enlarged because adequate 
support was blocked by river and canal. As along the canal 
south of Bellicourt, so here also the task was made still more 
arduous by the fact that tanks could not be used to advantage. 
Conan Doyle's account of the campaign gives one a good idea 
of the difficulties of the crossing. The Vth Corps of Byng's 
army reached the barrier September 30 without great opposition, 
as the Germans were purposely withdrawing behind its pro- 
tection; but all bridges on the corps front were destroyed, "and 
for three days General Shute prepared for the difficult task 
of forcing this broad waterway." Not until October 5 did the 
corps get across and then only when the outflanking move- 
ment from the south compelled the Germans to retire. The 
IVth Corps was held up at all points except one, where New 
Zealanders reached Crevecoeur on the eastern side but were 
driven out. They partially saved the bridge here, however, 
and maintained a foothold on the farther bank. On October 1 
the New Zealanders again got into Crevecoeur and began pushing 
troops over the incompletely wrecked bridge. "But it was 

42 Conan Doyle, The British Campaign: 1918, Vol. 6, p. 159. 



206 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

desperate work, and the attacking brigade suffered heavy losses." 
The German retreat, forced from the south, soon lightened 
the task. The Vlth Corps found several bridges intact, and 
part of its forces attempted to cross but found "nothing could 
be done without deliberate preparation." Small forces from one 
division "got across the canal during the night but were unable 
to establish any permanent bridgehead. In the morning of 
September 29, however, one brigade of this division made a 
lodgment upon the farther side and remained there, though 
with wire and machine guns before them. Pontoons were 
brought up during the day and many bridges thrown across." 
After very heavy fighting the heights at Rumilly, where the 
Germans stopped the attempt to debouch from the east side 
of the Scheldt in the 1917 Battle of Cambrai, were captured. 
But after a week of desperate struggle the corps was still in 
line along the western side of the barrier, although it had im- 
portant bridgeheads established on the eastern bank. On 
September 28 the XVI I th Corps reached the river. "The 
orders were to push on and cross the canal. . . It was soon 
clear, however, that the line of the canal and river could not be 
easily rushed, for all the possible crossings were swept by a 
deadly fire." Under cover of Folie Wood two battalions en- 
deavored to force a passage but failed. Later a crossing was 
effected on a broken bridge. Other units followed, and a bridge- 
head was opened out to the east. It had required a bloody 
struggle lasting a week, even with the aid of the outflanking 
movement from the south, to make an effective breach in the 
northern sector of the river-marsh-canal barrier. 

Between Le Catelet and Bellicourt, on the divide between 
the Somme and Scheldt drainage basins, was the only portion 
of the line from Cambrai to the northern defenses of St. Quentin 
not defended by a valley-canal barrier. Here the canal passed 
under the divide in a remarkable tunnel over three miles long in 
the chalk, excavated in Napoleon's time. The unbroken surface 
of the upland afforded "the only place in the whole line where 
tanks could be used to advantage." It was decided to launch 



THIRD SOMME BATTLE 207 

part of the main attack against this sector, and the 27th and 30th 
American Divisions, supported by Australians, were selected for 
the task. The fighting was of the most violent character. 
Realizing the special danger from tanks on this part of their 
front, the Germans prepared for their destruction by mines and 
traps, as well as by gunfire, as an offset to the absence of natural 
barriers. One brigade which had been well equipped with tanks 
is said to have lost all its heavy ones and most of its whippets in 
fifteen minutes. Americans smashed through the defenses and 
advanced well east of the tunnel; but groups of the enemy kept 
emerging from the ground behind them and renewing the battle 
in their rear. On barges in the tunnel there was room for two 
German divisions, and from numerous shafts seemingly endless 
reinforcements could be poured out on the surface. Advanced 
elements of the 27th Division were for some time cut off from 
support by enemy troops debouching from the subterranean 
stronghold in their rear. Enough of the divide north of Bellicourt 
was held by the 30th Division to pass tanks around over the 
unbroken surface north of the tunnel entrance and so down the 
eastern side of the barrier to help the troops engaged in extending 
the ground already gained there. Eventually the widening of 
this southern breach outflanked the defenses farther north, thus 
aiding the advance in the tunnel sector and compelling the 
retirement of the German forces still holding the eastern side of 
the Scheldt from Le Catelet northward. 

Meanwhile the French First Army operating on the right of 
the British had encircled St. Quentin, by passing over the Tron- 
quoy tunnel divide north of the city and by breaking the defense 
lines to the south where they crossed the level upland between 
the Somme and Oise valleys and were therefore unprotected by 
any natural obstacle. St. Quentin fell, and the victors pressed 
on to the line of the Oise, where they were effectively brought 
to bay. The entire Hindenburg Line, from St. Quentin to Cam- 
brai, was now in Allied hands, after one of the greatest battles 
of the war. A strong natural position, to strengthen which 
every device of art had been most skillfully employed, had not 



208 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 



m^^^Maximum advance of the Germans after ; 
establishment of the war of position /$$% 

S cale of m i I es /GZ/y^/te 




P 



49 



{Aumal 



SOourna 



oMoreuil 



[esle L 




KMontdidier 
Novo 






eauvais 



P^^fff^W^ 



pChantillv 



Fismes 
oTere-en-Tardenaii ; 

Donna 

TTnatftair- Trriprry 



Fig. ss — Map of northern France with the main German defensive positions (dash lim 



THIRD SOMME BATTLE 



209 




owing the use made by the German military leaders of the natural topographic barriers. 



210 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

long sufficed to shield the enemy. That the barrier fell as soon 
as it did is undoubtedly due in part to the fact that the German 
army was no longer what it had been. Excessive losses had 
greatly reduced its numerical strength. A long series of defeats 
and the knowledge that unlimited American reserves would 
surely crush them in the end had dangerously lowered the morale 
of the German soldiers. Ludendorff complains of passive 
resistance, skulking, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny 
among his troops at this time. It was correctly stated before 
the retreating enemy had reached the Hindenburg Line: "Luden- 
dorff ... is casting about anxiously for a defensive position 
on which he can hold the Allies until the winter season sets in. 
Will that position be the famous Hindenburg Line? It may 
not be, and for this reason. No line can be held now except 
by troops which have the stamina, resolution, and numbers to 
mend it by counterattacks when it is broken. It is a question 
not of numbers or natural obstructions, but of infantry of suf- 
ficient strength and quality." 43 Had the barrier been de- 
fended by the German army in its prime, the struggle would 
have been far longer and more costly, and the result might 
have been different. 

East of the Cambrai-St. Quentin sector of the Hindenburg 
Line there is no natural barrier of any great strength until the 
Selle River is reached. This stream rises close to the Oise valley 
near Guise and flows northward to join the Scheldt near Denain. 
Its position is therefore well adapted to serving as a connecting 
link between the Oise and Scheldt barriers. The stream itself 
is, even in its upper portions, deep enough to form a real obstacle, 
while the valley is open and its bottom covered with marshy 
meadows. The eastern wall, like that of the Hallue and other 
streams in the Somme plain (p. 126), is in general steeper than 
the western, and the crest on the eastern side is often higher, 
dominating the approaches from the west. Dams across the 
river turned parts of the valley into lakes. Truly "it was a 
position of great natural strength." As soon as the security 

43 McPherson, The Strategy of the Great War, p. 404. 



THIRD SOMME BATTLE 211 

of the Hindenburg Line was imperiled, German General Head- 
quarters ordered the preparation of a new defensive position 
along the Selle. This formed a part of the Lys-Hermann Line, 
extending from the Dutch frontier along the Eecloo canal, 
then the valleys of the Lys, the Scheldt, and the Selle, to reach 
the Oise near Guise. As the lower Selle makes an awkward 
angle with the Scheldt, the Hermann Line was here carried 
along the Ecaillon River 2 or 3 miles to the east (Fig. 55). 

On October 9, after the collapse of the Hindenburg Line, 
the German armies retreated across the plain to the Her- 
mann Line, taking up their new position behind the Selle. In 
the Flanders plain to the north a withdrawal behind the Scheldt 
was ordered, while to the south the front crossed from the 
upper Selle to the Oise valley below Guise and continued on 
southward along the eastern bank of that river. The Germans 
thus held only a narrow strip of the Somme battlefield (Fig. 24) 
at the extreme east. The Allies promptly launched an attack 
to drive them from behind their new river-marsh barrier, force 
them back on the difficult country of the Ardennes, and capture 
Maubeuge. Advancing with their left flank screened by the 
Scheldt valley, they encountered determined resistance on 
approaching the line of the Selle. The Battle of the Selle began 
October 10 with attempts to force the passages with cavalry. 
These failed, and the task was given over to the infantry. Dif- 
ferent army corps on reaching the western bank found it necessary 
to halt and organize for a general attack. One division attempt- 
ing to establish a bridgehead north of Le Cateau gained the 
high ground east of the barrier, only to be thrown back to the 
western bank. Another reached the crest but was pushed back 
within two hundred yards of the river behind them. A third 
gained a hill on the east, but was likewise forced back. "Thus 
ended this weary day which . . . had exposed both the south- 
ern Corps of the Third Army to heavy losses with barren re- 
sults. A week now elapsed, which was marked by very heavy 
artillery work on both sides." 44 

44 Conan Doyle, The British Campaign: 1018, Vol. 6, p. 232. 



212 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

Although the British occupied the west bank of the Selle 
throughout most of its length within a few days and by October 
14 had established a number of more or less satisfactory bridge- 
heads on the farther side, it was not until the 17th that com- 
munications could be established and sufficient strength de- 
veloped to attempt a grand assault on the strong position. The 
operations opened with a violent attack by French, British, 
and American troops against the short gap in the natural bar- 
rier existing at the divide between the source of the Selle River 
and the valley of the Oise. Three days of very heavy fighting 
were required to dislodge the enemy from the wooded country 
of the divide and drive him behind the Sambre-Oise barrier 
a few miles to the east. The southern part of the Selle defenses 
were now outflanked and the way opened for an assault on the 
main line of the river. This was launched in the darkness of 
night in order to reduce the advantages enjoyed by the enemy 
from his commanding positions. A heavy rain had soaked the 
loam on the upland and in the valley bottom, as well as the clay- 
flint formation outcropping along the higher slopes, changing 
them to a deep mire. The steep valley walls were slippery 
with mud. Everywhere the men suffered greatly from the na- 
ture of the ground, while tanks which had successfully been 
passed over the river could not operate to advantage. Men 
swam or waded the stream where bridges were lacking, those 
crossing the Ecaillon finding the water up to their armpits. One 
field company of engineers lost fifty per cent of its effectives 
before it could complete its bridge over the Selle. Altogether 
the enemy resistance could not be overcome and his armies 
driven back to the eastward until three days more of heavy 
fighting had taken place. 

Despite the fact that the line of the Selle had been hastily 
occupied and its organization was but little advanced; and the 
further fact that "the German infantry and machine gunners 
were no longer reliable, and cases were being reported of their 
retiring without fighting in front of our artillery barrage," 45 

45 Haig's Despatches, p. 293. 



THIRD SOMME BATTLE 213 

the barrier had held up the Allied pursuit for nearly two weeks. 

Coincident with the operations against the Selle line, the 
French farther south launched an attack to drive the Germans 
from their strong position behind the Oise barrier between 
Guise and La Fere. After a very bitter contest footholds on 
the eastern wall of the valley were gained at several points 
in the vicinity of Ribemont, and the process of prying the enemy 
out of his strong and long-held lines was begun. Under steady 
pressure applied by the French north of the Aisne as well as along 
the Oise, the Germans began their retreat to the strong "Hunding- 
Brunhilde Stellung" (Fig. 55), withdrawing from the Oise valley 
eastward to the meridian of Guise in order to bring their north- 
south front into proper articulation with the east-west Hunding 
Line. The southward flowing portion of the Oise, below Guise, 
was now clear of the enemy. 

Back of the Selle lay a number of shorter parallel rivers, 
among them the Rhonelle, Aunelle, and Honnelle, along which 
the Germans now fought delaying actions; while southward, 
beyond the heads of these streams, the enemy front was estab- 
lished behind the Sambre valley, part of a practically continuous 
northeast-southwest trench along which the Sambre and Oise 
flow in opposite directions from a point not far from Le Cateau. 
This marshy valley not only carries the Sambre-et-Oise Canal 
and the main Paris-Berlin railway, but also forms a military 
obstacle of some strength to troops advancing eastward. On 
November 4 the German front lay behind this obstacle from 
the vicinity of Landrecies on the Sambre to Guise on the Oise. 
Immediately to the north the Germans were on the western 
outskirts of the great Mormal Forest, ready to fall back through 
the woods to the line of the Sambre if necessary. 

The main Battle of the Sambre opened November 4 on a front 
of nearly 40 miles, of which about two-thirds lay along the 
line of the Sambre or the Mormal Forest. The French on the 
right and the British in the center stormed the strong position, 
while the British left advanced across the Aunelle River farther 
north. The French reached the east bank at a number of points 



214 BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOMME 

and dislodged the enemy from all his positions between Guise 
and Oisy. Guise itself was captured; and thus the valley of 
the upper Oise was opened to an Allied advance, and the Ger- 
mans were compelled to evacuate the Hunding Line. A difficult 
crossing was effected by the British at Catillon and at the lock 
two miles south. "The 32nd Division . . . met strong resis- 
tance all along the river line. By hard fighting they forced a 
crossing at Ors." Other troops got across near Landrecies by 
means of rafts. On the left the Aunelle valley and the high 
ground east of it proved serious obstacles; and, when they were 
negotiated, the Honnelle River held the attacking forces in 
check for a time. 

But the resistance of the demoralized German army was 
broken. The Teutonic hordes were now sullenly retiring east- 
ward, cowed and whipped, to the Antwerp-Meuse line (Fig. 55), 
far in their rear, meanwhile begging an armistice from their 
conquerors. To such an army topographic barriers,- be they 
never so strong, avail but little. The victorious British swept 
on to Maubeuge and cut the vital railway line which was the 
objective of Allied strategy, thus crowning with final disaster the 
whole campaign of the German northern armies. Before the 
armistice was signed the last of the invaders had been driven far 
from the Battlefield of the Somme. 



CHAPTER V 

THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE: 
THE PLATEAU-AND-LOWLAND BATTLEFIELD 

In our study of the Battlefield of the Somme we found that in 
its southeastern part there appeared a number of high mesas or 
plateau remnants towering several hundred feet above the 
general level of the chalk plain. These were the Lassigny, Noyon, 
and St. Gobain "massifs," as the French call them, composed of 
more recent geological formations which once covered the older 
chalk but which have been removed from most of the Somme 
region by long-continued erosion. They were, moreover, mere 
outlying fragments of a continuous plateau occupying a vast area 
to the southeast. 

If a traveler were to start eastward and follow along the base of 
the plateau scarp, keeping on the chalk himself but with the 
escarpment close at his right, he would make an interesting 
discovery. About Lassigny and Noyon he would see the chalk of 
the lowland disappearing southeastward under the plateau. 
Farther east, at Laon, the chalk would be found dipping south- 
ward beneath the escarpment (Fig. 57). The course of the plateau 
margin, swinging gradually southeastward, then southward, and 
finally southwest ward, would lead him past Rheims, Epernay, 
and Sezanne. Near these points he would find the chalk always 
inclining inward toward the center of the circle described by his 
journey, and always plunging gently under the plateau forma- 
tions (Fig. 58). Our traveler would discover, in short, that the 
chalk dipped in from all sides to form a shallow basin and that 
in the center of the basin rose a rudely circular plateau whose 
ragged margins he had been following. 

Note. — For Chapters V and VI the reader should constantly consult the 
detailed map of the battlefield in the pocket (PI. Ill) and the block diagrams (Figs. 
62 and 64). 



2l6 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 



If the discovery prompted some curiosity as to why the central 
plateau should remain standing while the marginal areas had been 
worn low enough to expose the underlying chalk, an examination 
of the rock layers might suggest an answer. Toward the top of 
the escarpment would be found very resistant beds of limestone 
and other calcareous beds, more or less cavernous owing to solu- 




~ "ontdidier 



Fig. 56 — Generalized sketch map of the Battlefield of the Marne. Ruled areas 
represent uplands, white areas lowlands. For the topographic details and place 
names referred to in the text, see the detailed map of the battlefield in the pocket 
(PI. Ill) and the block diagrams (Figs. 62 and 64). 



tion of the rock along fractures and crevices in its mass. Lower 
down thick beds of soft, easily eroded sands would appear, 
alternating with fine-grained impervious clay or marl formations. 
At the base is the chalk. It is easy to see that when such a series 
of rocks was warped by movements of the earth's crust into a 
shallow basin and erosion attacked their upturned edges, a 
circular central plateau on the limestone, bordered by a rimming 
lowland on the chalk, must result. For the loose sand would 



PARIS BASIN 



217 



quickly wash away, especially since rain falling upon it would 
find it already saturated by water sinking down through the 
cavernous limestones and held in the sand by the impervious 
clays beneath. The more resistant limestone would not erode so 
rapidly, but its margin would constantly be undermined by the 
washing away of the underlying sand, thereby developing a 




Fig. 57 — Ideal north-south cross-section of the Marne plateau, showing beveling 
of different rock layers, with consequent development of successive east-west 
trending topographic belts (Brie, Valois, Soissonnais, and Laonnois). 

steep scarp. As this process was continued on all sides, the 
limestone would form a more or less circular plateau, constantly 
shrinking in size, with steep marginal scarps; while the removal 
of the sand and the washing away of the unconsolidated clay 
would expose the chalk as a low plain belt, everywhere dipping in 




Fig. 58 — Ideal east-west cross-section of the Marne plateau, showing 
how different layers of the cap rock come to the surface in this di- 
rection, thereby varying the terrain of the battlefield. The key shows 
the relation of this cross-section to the cross-sections of the Battlefields 
of Verdun (Fig. 78) and Lorraine (Fig. 99) and forms a continuous sec- 
tion from the Marne plateau to the Black Forest. 



toward the plateau (Figs. 57 and 58). The basin structure is 
known to geographers and geologists as the "Paris Basin," because 
Paris lies near its center; the central plateau is sometimes called 
the "Parisian Plateau," sometimes the "Marne Plateau" because 
its most typical portion is drained by the Marne River and its 
tributaries; while the rimming chalk lowland is called "la 
Champagne" (the open country) because of its vast expanse of 
barren plain. 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 




PARIS BASIN 



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BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 




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PARIS BASIN 221 

Let our traveler climb to the crest of the escarpment at some 
convenient point and he can seize in an instant the remarkable 
contrast between the two regions. Looking westward over the 
plateau, the eye sweeps an expanse of flat upland where fields 
of grain are frequently interspersed with areas of woodland. 
Here and there the woods merge into a vast forest stretching 
for miles to the level horizon. It is a pleasing landscape, verdant 
and smiling under a summer sun yet seemingly lonely in its 
broad stretches of little-inhabited upland. At first one has the 
impression that the even surface is unbroken by any "topographic 
accidents," as the inevitable results of immutable laws in opera- 
tion are unwittingly called. But a searching of the horizon re- 
veals a low east-west ridge in the dim distance, rising a few hun- 
dred feet higher and promising better views of the plateau sur- 
face if one could reach it. A short walk brings one to the margin 
of a valley, sharply trenched several hundred feet into the 
plateau rocks, its bottom bright green with meadows and the 
lower slopes of its walls dotted with picturesque villages. Turn- 
ing back to the crest of the escarpment and looking eastward 
over the lowland, how striking the contrast! In the foreground, 
the lower and gentler slopes of the scarp are completely covered 
with the world-famous vineyards of the Champagne (Figs. 59 and 
60). Trees are rare, and villages are the only noticeable objects 
to break a rather pleasing monotony of countless small patches of 
vines, planted so close together and so much to the exclusion of 
all other growth as to give the impression of one vast vineyard. 
Beyond, and reaching to the horizon, is seen the low faintly 
undulating chalk plain (Fig. 60), often arid and bare between 
the winding green ribbons of stream valleys or the straight white 
ribbons of chalk roads, but, unlike the plain of Picardy and Artois, 
mottled with numerous dark patches of pine woods — a dry, deso- 
late, repellant land, which the natives describe by a figurative 
expression meaning useless or wretched country: la Champagne 
pouilleuse. The traveler finds between these two divisions of the 
Paris Basin almost as great a difference of aspect as that between 
the humid plain of Flanders and the arid plain of the Somme. 



222 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

The Paris Basin is not perfectly symmetrical, for Nature sel- 
dom uses perfect geometrical patterns. But in the region we are 
to study the departures from the ideal scheme of a circular pla- 
teau and rimming lowland are so slight as to be inconsiderable. 
The basin, moreover, is not so small as we have thus far pictured 
it; there are still other layers of hard and soft rocks underneath 
the chalk which come to the surface farther northeast, east, and 
southeast to form additional circular escarpments bordered by 
rimming lowlands (Fig. 61). They are of interest as affecting 
the strategic position of the Marne battlefield and are briefly 
described on a later page (p. 224). The Battlefield of the Marne 
itself properly embraces parts of the central plateau and of the 
gently inclined chalk plain of the Champagne. Napoleon's 
brilliant but hopeless campaign in 1814 showed how difficult it is 
to separate these two regions when military operations are under 
discussion, and the campaign one hundred years later reinforced 
this truth. The rivers of the Champagne flow into the Marne 
plateau ; the natural defensive lines of the plateau often find their 
logical continuation eastward in the Champagne. An invader's 
position on the plateau can most easily be outflanked by an 
advance northwestward around the plateau margin, following the 
chalk lowland. In 1914 it was on the plain of the Champagne 
that the Germans made one of their chief efforts to win the battle 
raging on the plateau; and the Allied victory on the plateau made 
a German retreat in the Champagne inevitable. The Battle of 
the Marne spread eastward beyond the limits of the Champagne; 
but the most vital operations took place on the terrain included 
within the limits of what has here been called "the Battlefield of 
the Marne" (Fig. 56), which extends from east of Vitry at the 
eastern border of the chalk plain to west of Meaux in the heart 
of the central plateau. 

Strategic Position of the Marne Battlefield 

Whether or not all roads lead to Rome, one is tempted to say 
for northern France that all rivers lead to Paris. From the north, 
east, and south a remarkable series of valleys (Fig. 56) converge 



Betllefieldi of the World War 



Amir. Ceogr. Sec Rnearch Stria No. 3 




Fig. 62 - Block digram of the Mame plateau and Champagne lowland, showing the salient features of the terrain 



STRATEGIC POSITION 223 

on the city which is in point of wealth, industrial development, 
political importance, and sentiment "the heart of France." From 
whatever direction an invader may come, valley routes point the 
way to the most vital point to attack. On the south the Loire 
appears to have had its former continuation northward into the 
Seine, and the old gravels of its bed are found along the low 
depression which seems to mark its abandoned course. Even on 
the west the valley of the Seine offers a natural pathway from 
the sea upstream to the capital. Lying near the point of con- 
vergence of so many rivers, and on that side of Paris which faces 
toward most of the other countries of Europe, the Battlefield of 
the Marne was destined to play an important part in the military 
history of France. From the earliest days hostile hordes have 
again and again poured along the valleys leading to the center of 
the Paris Basin, while the level plain of the Champagne tempted 
the Romans to build their roads across it in every direction and 
served as a meeting place and a grand route of travel for the 
international merchants of a later period. 

If the rivers point the way to Paris, the plateau scarps bar 
that way. Each resistant rock layer coming to the surface slopes 
gradually upward to the northeast, east, or southeast, to fall off 
in a steep erosion scarp facing away from Paris or toward an 
approaching enemy (Fig. 61). Imagine yourself standing on the 
crest of the scarp rimming the central Marne plateau, near 
Rheims or Epernay, looking eastward over the Champagne 
lowland spread out before you like a gigantic map, and you will 
not find it difficult to realize the military significance of such a 
terrain. For miles in every direction all important movements on 
the lowland lie open to your observation. No enemy could suc- 
cessfully maneuver for a surprise attack so long as you were 
watching him from the crest. The roads stand out like white 
ribbons against the dull greens or browns of the plain and hence 
are easily registered for accurate artillery fire. Enemy move- 
ments, being largely confined to the roads, can then be broken up 
before assaults on the heights are organized. Artillery of the 
defenders finds ample cover in the ravines and valleys of the 



224 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

plateau; but on the exposed plain the attacking army finds little 
concealment for the batteries necessary to the proper support of 
infantry charges. Uphill assaults against entrenched positions 
on the slopes and crest of the plateau would be made with every 
advantage in favor of the defending troops. 

If you descend into the plain of Champagne and move east- 
ward over its surface, your course will lie for 35 or 40 miles upon 
the thirsty chalk soil of this unfruitful "Dry Champagne," where 
only scattered pine woods and infertile fields relieve the semi- 
desert aspect. Soon you note that the plain is sloping gradually 
upward as you advance, and at last you suddenly find yourself 
standing on the brink of a second escarpment, lower than that of 
the central plateau and composed of the chalk instead of the 
higher limestone formation, but high enough to give you good 
views over the next lowland to the east. Here you see a landscape 
clothed with verdure, watered by numerous streams, and dotted 
with occasional marshes and ponds. This is the "Wet Cham- 
pagne," where impervious marls and clays, coming up to the 
surface from under the chalk, hold more water on the surface 
(Fig. 56). 

If you continued the eastward journey, as indeed we shall do 
later (Chapters VII and IX), before reaching the Vosges Moun- 
tains you would cross not less than six of these east-facing 
escarpments, arranged in concentric lines around the north- 
eastern, eastern, and southeastern sides of the Paris Basin. 
Their value as massive walls of defense upon which no artillery 
could make an impression cannot escape even the most casual 
observer. The converging rivers do offer easy passage through 
the obstacles, carving natural gateways toward which roads, 
railways, and canals converge; but those having the highest 
strategic value, like Laon and Rheims at the innermost scarp, 
are protected by permanent fortifications; while the others, 
like Epernay at the inner scarp, and Rethel and Vitry-le- 
Francois at the second or chalk scarp, can quickly be fortified by 
field works in case of war. The advantages enjoyed by the forces 
of defense guarding the strategic gateways, holding the crests of 



SURFACE FEATURES 225 

the uplands, and maneuvering on the gentle backslopes out of 
sight of the enemy, as against a foe compelled to advance across 
the flat open lowlands fully exposed to observation and artillery 
fire from the heights, are so obvious that the concentric escarp- 
ments have long been called "the natural defenses of Paris." 

The Battlefield of the Marne is the core of this defensive 
system, the central keep of the many-walled castle of France. 
Whatever victories advancing hosts may win on the outer walls, 
a final struggle awaits them on the central plateau. Attila and 
his Huns were conquered on the level plain of the Champagne 
in the eastern part of the field, just in front of the innermost wall. 
After defeating his enemies on many a distant field, Napoleon 
was finally driven to bay on the inner wall, where his supreme 
genius enabled him to dash from one part of the natural fortress 
to another and for a time to hurl back successively the enemy 
columns seeking to breach it simultaneously from the northeast, 
east, and southeast. When the Prussians in 1870 had crushed the 
military power of France on the outer walls, there still remained 
a months-long struggle in the center of the fortress before Paris 
was in their hands. In 1914 the fundamental purpose of German 
grand strategy was to avoid delaying actions on the outer walls 
by striking swiftly at the core of the defensive system, thus 
carrying the fight into the Battlefield of the Marne during the 
very first weeks of the war. 

Surface Features of the Battlefield of the Marne 

It will be profitable to examine more carefully the terrain of 
each of the two main subdivisions of the Marne battlefield, 
the Marne plateau and the plain of Champagne (Fig. 62). 

THE MARNE PLATEAU 

A very hasty survey is sufficient to show that the hard cap 
rock of the central plateau is not a single layer of one kind of 
limestone but rather a series of resistant beds lying one upon 
the other. Some layers are of very pure limestone; others are 
calcareous marls, fine-grained enough to detain downward-seep- 



226 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 



ing rainfall for a time and thus to form fairly distinct water hori- 
zons; still others contain gypsum or sandstone. Calcareous 
rocks predominate, and to speak of the upland as a limestone 
plateau is not far wrong. 

One interesting feature of the plateau, and one which has 
distinct military significance, is that these several layers of 
the resistant cap are not only tilted in toward the center of the 
basin but have been beveled across by erosion so that different 

layers come to the sur- 
face over different parts 
of the plateau, as an 
east-west cross-section 
south of Epernay will 
show (Fig. 58). It so 
happens that in the 
Marne battlefield the 
dip of the beds from 
north to south is more 
constant than that from 
east to west, while at the 
same time the beveling 
by erosion at the present 
surface seems to have 
been more complete. As 
a result the belted structure due to the outcropping of different 
layers of the cap is unusually distinct (Fig. 57). We thus have the 
curious result that, whereas the general structure of the Paris 
Basin gives concentric belts of different types of country with 
the rocks dipping inward toward the center, the central plateau 
itself shows nearly east-west belts of country with the rocks 
dipping prevailingly southward. This contrast in direction of the 
topographic belts, which has, as we shall see, very important 
military consequences, may be expressed diagramatically by 
Figure 63, in which the arrows show the directions of rock dip 
and the names are those given to the different belts by the 
inhabitants. 




Fig. 63 — Diagrammatic representation of the 
contrast between the east-west topographic 
belts of the central plateau, where the rocks 
have a prevailing southward dip, and the con- 
centric (roughly north-south) belts, where the 
rocks dip prevailingly inward toward the center 
of the Paris Basin. 



MARNE PLATEAU 227 

The Brie Region 

If one starts at the southern side of the Marne battlefield and 
advances northward over the plateau, the topographic contrasts 
of the successive belts will readily become apparent. In the 
belt between the valleys of the Seine and Marne Rivers, known 
as "the Brie" region (Fig. 56), the layer of cap rock exposed at the 
surface is an unusually resistant "millstone" formation, in which 
are found quarries over four centuries old. Only the larger 
streams and their principal branches are able to cut through it. 
As the soft sands and unconsolidated clays are here far below the 
surface, owing to their southward dip (Fig. 57), even the deepest 
valleys do not reach them and hence have no opportunity to 
undermine the cap rock and dissect the plateau into fragments. 
The most striking features of the Brie, therefore, are the vast 
expanses of level plateau upland, relatively unbroken by minor 
stream valleys and only trenched by a limited number of widely 
spaced major valleys. While the top layer of rock in much of 
the Brie is more or less cavernous, owing to solution of its cal- 
careous material, and so permits surface water to escape readily 
underground, the marl layers next below are somewhat impervi- 
ous. They check the water's downward progress and cause it 
to come out on the valley sides in the form of springs, some of 
them notable for their abundant flow. Hence the pleasing 
verdure of the Brie valleys, among which the Grand Morin and 
the Petit Morin are the most important. 

Where impervious beds are close to the surface, not only is 
the vegetation more vigorous but ponds and small lakes abound 
on the plateau. The dip of the rocks shown in Figure 58, and 
a lateral change in the composition of certain layers, combine to 
bring about this condition in eastern Brie, where we find great 
forests interspersed with lakes southwest of Epernay, making 
a peculiarly difficult country in which to conduct military 
operations. Here Bliicher's fleeing troops were caught in 
the bogs or drowned in the marshes and lakes a hundred years 
before the Kaiser's hordes battled on the plateau against d'Espe- 
rey and Foch. Western Brie, on the contrary, has its better- 



228 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

drained surface layers covered with a fertile loam which gives 
excellent wheat land. The upland is here much cultivated, 
grainfields alternating with extensive pastures and only occa- 
sional forest patches. The straight roads across the cultivated 
upland are often bordered on either side by a single row of trees, 
which give excellent ranging marks for artillery fire. Extensive 
forests like those of Crecy and Armainvilliers occur where the 
rich loam covering seems to fail, while others like Tartre Wood 
grow on erosion remnants of a higher sand formation (Fig. 57). 
This is the same sandstone on which grows the Forest of Fon- 
tainebleau south of the Seine, and it forms a number of isolated 
hills and ridges scattered over the plateau, some of which, like 
the butte of Doue near Coulommiers, have been cleared and 
afford excellent views in all directions. 

Valois and Tardenois 

The Valois-Tardenois belt next north (Figs. 56 and 57), ex- 
tending from the Marne valley to the east-west ridge known as 
the "crest of Villers-Cotterets," shows a different type of terrain. 
Here the layers of cap rock forming the surface of the Brie occur 
only in scattered patches, and the next underlying beds come up 
to influence the topography. In the Valois portion, lying west 
of the Ourcq valley, these beds are less resistant than the layer 
of millstone forming so much of the Brie surface; and hence 
this part of the plateau is more dissected by small valleys. 
The beds are also more pervious than the marls which kept so 
much moisture near the surface of the Brie, and lie directly 
upon a massive limestone formation through which water easily 
passes downward by means of fissures and solution cavities. 
Consequently the smaller valleys are apt to be dry, and those 
which cut into the massive limestone have the narrow gorge 
forms so characteristic of limestone regions. The ponds and 
marshes so abundant in parts of Brie are rare in Valois. As the 
surface of the plateau is covered with a fertile loam retaining 
just enough moisture to make it productive, much of the Valois 
upland is cultivated. Only in the more infertile tracts, where a 



MARNE PLATEAU 229 

sandy layer protrudes through the loam, are there large forests, 
such as those of Halatte, Ermenonville, and Villers-Cotterets. 
Isolated erosion remnants capped by the Fontainebleau sandstone 
are rather frequent, especially in the west, where they form 
lines of hills and ridges protecting Paris on the north and east. 
One ridge in particular, the Dammartin line of hills which domi- 
nates the plateau northwest of Meaux (Fig. 56), is of vital interest 
in connection with the First Battle of the Marne. 

The loam which covers much of the upland in Brie and Valois, 
like the loam on the chalk plain of the Somme, becomes a serious 
impediment to military operations when soaked with heavy rains 
or melting snows. In combination with the water-soaked soils of 
the more impervious beds forming other parts of the plateau sur- 
face, it may then make unmetaled roads extremely difficult to 
traverse. The Allies' campaign against Napoleon in 18 14 was 
greatly impeded by the bad condition of the main highways; 
Bliicher's columns advanced slowly, and Yorck arrived late 
at the battle of Montmirail because his artillery could make poor 
headway through the mud. During Napoleon's pursuit of 
Bliicher late in February "the artillery stuck fast in the mud and 
delayed him much," and Napoleon himself on another occasion 
wrote: "I am a little annoyed by the roads. They are horrible. 
There are six feet of mud." 1 But neither in Brie nor in Valois, 
nor in any other part of the Marne plateau, does the loam seem 
to have been sufficiently thick or impervious, or sufficiently rein- 
forced by impermeable underlying deposits, to make it the awful 
curse it proved on the Battlefield of the Somme. Under normal 
conditions the roads of the upland are good. 

Just as eastern Brie differs from western Brie, owing to the 
westward dip of the beveled rocks, bringing different layers to 
the surface, and to lateral changes in the composition of the same 
bed, so for the same reasons Tardenois differs from Valois. The 
dip carries the rocks upward to the east (Fig. 58), and, as beveling 
by erosion has not been complete, the plateau in Tardenois is 

1 T. A. Dodge: Napoleon: A History of the Art of War, 4 vols., Boston, 1907; 
reference in Vol. 4, pp. 366, 407. 



230 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

higher and the streams cut deeper than in Valois. In places they 
even cut through the massive limestone into the soft sands and 
clays below, thus giving opportunity for undermining and a more 
extensive dissection of the plateau. The fairly resistant cap rock 
of Valois is not present above the limestone in Tardenois; it is 
replaced by soft, unconsolidated marls, which erode easily them- 
selves and permit the soluble limestone below to be more easily 
eroded. Tardenois is, therefore, much more dissected than 
Valois. The valleys are more open and have gentler slopes; and, 
since the marls are sufficiently impervious to cause considerable 
water to move over their surface and flow down the valley walls, 
and since the valley bottoms often trench the water horizon in 
the soft sands overlying the dense clays at the bottom of the 
plateau series, the plateau of Tardenois is frequently forested and 
the valleys are rich in verdure. Tilted up to the highest elevation, 
projecting like a bastion from the general margin of the plateau 
out into the Champagne, and clothed with a dense forest, that 
part of Tardenois called the Mountain of Rheims is one of the 
most imposing military obstacles in this difficult terrain (Fig. 62). 

The Soissonnais 
North of Villers-Cotterets ridge, itself a long east-west erosion 
remnant capped by the Fontainebleau sandstone, the Soissonnais 
stretches northward beyond the River Aisne (Figs. 56 and 57). 
Here the massive limestone, the calcaire grossier of the French, 
has reached the surface, while the underlying soft sands have 
risen so high that the valleys cut clear through them to the under- 
lying clays. This means that the rivers, abundantly supplied by 
water filtering through the limestone and sandstone but held up 
by the clays, have every opportunity to sweep away the soft sands 
and undermine the limestone cap rock. Accordingly, in the 
Soissonnais the plateau is more dissected, especially in its north- 
ern part, than any area we have described farther south. The re- 
maining upland consists of flat-topped strips on the principal 
divides between the main streams, the margins of which have 
been frayed into irregular promontories ; peninsulas, and bays by 



MARNE PLATEAU 231 

the gnawing action of small tributaries working headward into the 
divides. The long east-west upland strip between the parallel 
valleys of the Aisne and Ailette Rivers east of Fort Malmaison, 
known as the Chemin des Dames (Fig. 64), is more dissected than 
the rest of the Soissonnais and belongs rather with the Laonnois 
farther north, although its unbroken continuity with the less 
dissected plateau to the west makes it desirable to describe it here. 
It shows the contrast between the shorter tributaries on the north 
side, and the longer ones on the south, which we should expect on 
southward-dipping rocks. With its comparatively straight and 
steep northern scarp, defended by the natural moat of the Ailette 
valley, and the parallel north-south ridges and ravines of its 
southern side affording protection against flank attacks and con- 
cealment for artillery, munitions, and men, the Chemin des 
Dames offered the Allies a very strong position, to gain which 
they made heavy sacrifices. While held by the Germans, facing 
southward with the valley of the Aisne as the protecting moat, it 
proved strong enough to defeat repeated Allied offensives. 
Whether attacked from the north or the south it was to prove a 
formidable obstacle, while the north-south ridges and ravines 
would make progress along it from the east or the west almost 
equally difficult. The Chemin des Dames is in fact one of the 
most important natural defenses of Paris. 

It has been noted above that the fissured limestone cap permits 
surface water to escape rapidly downward, just as does the 
fissured chalk of the Somme battlefield. Like the Somme plain, 
therefore, the Soissonnais is arid. It is even more arid than the 
chalk plain, and, while a covering of loamy soil produces good 
crops of beets and wheat, the general appearance is dreary in the 
extreme. There is not a village to add a touch of life to the 
landscape, for they all nestle in the valleys to escape the winds 
sweeping unhindered across the barren upland and to profit by 
abundant supplies of water flowing out below the limestone cap. 
Trees are rare, and fields of grain and beets, growing on a thin 
but fertile loam soil covering, succeed each other in monotonous 
procession. The unobstructed view sweeps the level surface to 



232 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 



the horizon. Departures from the horizontal are all downward, 
never upward, and pass unnoticed unless one happens to stand 
on the brink of a valley. Then a smiling landscape greets the 
eye. The depressions are spacious, even when the streams which 
drain them are tiny brooks. Below the steep upper cliff formed 
by the undermining of the limestone cap, the slopes are gentle and 
pleasing, except where the slumping of landslides has roughened 



th Cultivated fields, barren of frees 
ften rvooded f steeper scarp snors scattered 
fissures, or bare cliffs. Numerous quarries 




Sands 
Marl and clay 



Fig. 65 — Typical cliff slope in the northern portion of the Marne 
plateau. (Based in part on data furnished by the French Fifth Army.) 



the surface. Well-watered by springs escaping from the outcrops 
of three impervious formations — a layer of compact marl and 
clay which here intervenes between the fissured limestone cap 
rock and the loose sands, the dense clay beneath the sands, and a 
lower bed of marl and clay between the next underlying sands 
and the chalk (Fig. 65) — the slopes are clothed with green, partly 
owing to vegetable gardens flourishing on the fine-grained sands 
enriched by lime falling down from above, and partly to orchards, 
vineyards, and unreclaimed woodland. The broad valley floors 
are apt to be marshy, for the rivers flow close to or on the clay; 
here meadows or open grasslands are the rule, except where a 
marsh remains unimproved. 



MARNE PLATEAU 233 

The massive limestone cap is exceptionally easy to quarry and 
furnishes a durable building stone. Two interesting consequences 
of this fact are quickly noted in the Soissonnais. The villages 
are numerous, solidly built, and cf great antiquity; for man 
"found in this district, together with a fertile soil and abundant 
waters, an inexhaustible source of excellent building materials. 
The smallest habitations are built of dressed stone from the 
calcaire grossier; everywhere are old churches with sculptured 
towers, sometimes even the remains of Roman or Merovingian 
walls, testifying to the facilities which construction work has at 
all times found in this region." 2 This, in its turn, had a conse- 
quence of some military importance. Not only were the build- 
ings more formidable as fortified redoubts than those of less solid 
construction in the Somme plain, but — far more important 
— the extraction of such quantities of stone throughout long 
centuries had left the plateau honeycombed with quarries, cav- 
erns, and vast subterranean galleries in which whole armies could 
find secure shelter from the heaviest artillery bombardments. 
The traveler from Soissons to Laon passes, near Fort Malmaison 
and within a few feet of the road, an inconspicuous opening in a 
side ravine, which is typical of countless others like it. Enter 
and explore the cavern, unwinding a string to mark the route 
behind you if you are new to its labyrinths, and you will discover 
abundant traces of German occupation — the remains of an elec- 
tric lighting system and of telephone lines, signs to guide the 
former inhabitants, remnants of the comfortable furnishings of 
officers' quarters, and the miscellaneous debris left by a horde 
of soldiers. In this single cavern several thousand Germans are 
said to have been quartered. What must have been the military 
value of a strong natural position like the Chemin des Dames, fur- 
nished with numberless ready-made subterranean shelters on such 

a scale? 

The Laonnois 

The Laonnois is the Soissonnais carried one step further. 
Here the underlying formations rise so high that the streams 

2 Albert de Lapparent: Description geologique du Bassin Parisien et des regions 
adjacentes, Paris, 1888, p. 61. 



234 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

frequently cut through the clays and into the chalk (Figs. 56 and 
57). Valleys are wider, and the dissection of the plateau has gone 
far enough to break it up into skeleton ridges or more or less 
isolated mesas and buttes, of which latter the fortified hill of 
Laon(Fig. 64),towering35ofeet above the plain below, is the type; 
while the St. Gobain, Noyon, and Lassigny massifs, with their 
broader, forest-clad uplands, belong to the class of larger mesas. 
Those remnants lying northwest of the Oise valley, including the 
Noyon and Lassigny massifs, are usually treated separately as the 
Noyonnais; but they may here be grouped with the Laonnois, 
with which they have a common origin and history. It should be 
noted, however, that on the Noyon and Lassigny uplands, and 
even more on the St. Gobain upland, the removal of the limestone 
cap from all but the central area has exposed broad expanses of 
the underlying sands, while sandy and clayey phases of overlying 
beds here still surmount what is left of the limestone. It is these 
relatively infertile and relatively inaccessible uplands of sand and 
clay which bear the extensive forests covering by far the greater 
portion of the massifs. We have found, in our review of military 
operations on the Sortlme battlefield (Chapter IV), what an 
important role these wooded plateau remnants played throughout 
the war. Again and again the battle line on the plain, imperiled 
by major operations in the open country, anchored itself fast 
at the southern end to the unshakable buttress formed by one or 
another of the wooded tablelands. 

The valleys between the mesa remnants are well watered, 
although the short streams are not large. So humid have they 
become in some cases that canals are necessary to drain the 
marshy land. It was the Russians' skillful defense of a defile 
between the marshes southwest of Laon which in 18 14 stopped 
repeated attacks by Ney and destroyed the French hope of 
getting possession of the strategic stronghold of Laon without 
a battle. When Napoleon with his 35,000 men finally attacked 
the formidable plateau of Laon, defended by Bliicher with 
nearly 100,000, it was with these marshes and the narrow defile 
in his rear. The whole operation was so dangerous that Bliicher 



./oAraon : Baltlefieldt of the World Wat 



Amtr. Ceogr. Soc Research Series No. 3 




Fig. 64 - Block diagram of the Chemin des Dames region, showing the salient features of the terrain. 



MARNE PLATEAU 235 

in his astonishment could see in it only the indication of some 
hidden maneuver by the great master of strategy. 3 That 
Napoleon's impossible undertaking was defeated gives less sur- 
prise than does his utter disregard of the topographic difficulties 
against which he hurled his little army. It was but one sign 
among many of the decadence of his remarkable powers. 

A survey of the several belts of topography characterizing the 
central plateau (Fig. 56) has revealed to us a transition from the 
little dissected Brie plateau on the south, through a moderately 
dissected Valois-Tardenois belt in the center, to the much dis- 
sected upland of the Soissonnais next north, and finally to the 
extreme fragmentation of the northernmost margin in the Laon- 
nois. From the military point of view the terrain becomes in- 
creasingly difficult from south to north. An army capable of 
beating an enemy in the southern area might find the task beyond 
its power if that enemy stood on the northern terrain. On the 
other hand, a blow heavy enough to drive an army southward 
from the difficult terrain in the north might go far before its 
energy became exhausted in the more favorable country encoun- 
tered in the advance. We shall see that both of these conditions 
were realized in the military operations of 1914-1918 on the 
Battlefield of the Marne. 

Parallel Lineaments of the Marne Plateau 

The southward dip of the rocks capping the plateau is not 
the only cause of an east-west trend of topographic lineaments 
in the Battlefield of the Marne. In examining the Somme battle- 
field we found that a series of shallow northwest-southeast 
trending folds affected the orientation of valleys and upland 
crests. This system of disturbances invaded the central plateau 
of the Paris Basin and, while too faint to bend the rocks into 
folds noticeable to the eye, was sufficient to affect so delicate 
a thing as the direction taken by running water, and hence the 
lines of greatest and least erosion. As a result, long ridges, or 
lines of hills, left where erosion was least effective, rise above 

3 Dodge, Napoleon, Vol. 4, p. 430. 



236 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

the general level of the plateau. Because the folds swing more 
to the eastward in the central part of the basin, these ridges 
run more nearly east-west than do the topographic elements 
of the Sorarae area; but the inclination toward the north- 
west is still very noticeable, especially in the region about Paris. 
Transport yourself for the moment to some point on the high 
ridge west of Paris which is clothed with the enchanting Forest 
of Marly and which there forms the southern wall of the broad 
valley of the winding Seine. From some point of vantage on the 
upland crest, perhaps from the ancient aqueduct towering over 
the valley above the little village of Louveciennes, you can 
read in the surface of the land unmistakable evidences of that 
hidden structure which determined the architecture of the inner 
defenses of the Parisian plateau. First note that the ridge on 
which you stand trends northwest-southeast and that the 
valley below you, however much its great river may swing in 
serpentine curves, pursues a general course northwestward to 
the sea. Behind you lies the open, smiling valley in which so 
much of French history was written at Versailles; beyond it 
another ridge, and beyond that the valley of Chevreuse — all 
keeping parallel northwest-southeast courses. Far to your left, 
where the Oise flows into the Seine, you see an upland crowned 
with trees rising above the valley floor; this is the height of 
Hautil, and it stretches far away to the northwest. In front, 
where the Seine swings rudely in against the vineyard-clad 
slopes, you see a zigzag road mounting past the towers of 
Cormeilles to the level crest above. It is the northwest-south- 
east ridge of Cormeilles-Sannois, which almost hides the triple- 
crested massif of Montmorency, whose forested upland rigidly 
preserves the same northwest-southeast trend. Off to the right, 
the heights of Vaujours run northwestward from the Marne 
but then swing suddenly around toward Paris, seeming thus a 
rude interruption of Nature's otherwise symmetrical pattern. 
But if you will go to those heights and again look northeast, you 
may descry in the distance the long line of hills running from 
Montmelian past Dammartin ridge and Montge to Monthyon 



MARNE PLATEAU 237 

and its neighbors, the latter of which overlook the Marne valley 
near Meaux. Here again the northwest-southeast parallelism 
of form is beautifully shown. 

There is nothing haphazard in Nature's workings. Immutable 
laws operate to produce inevitable results. Here near the 
center of the Paris Basin the rock layers appear horizontal; 
but water running on horizontal rocks could never produce a 
parallel system of heights such as surrounds Paris. A faint 
warping of the beds into parallel undulations, so faint as 
to be imperceptible to the closest scrutiny and determinable 
only by instrumental methods, would produce the results 
observed. Rock structure, however inconspicuous, is the key 
to Nature's architecture in the Paris region and hence to an 
understanding of the defenses of the city. Obsolete forts, like 
those of Liege, can be destroyed in a few hours by 16-inch howitz- 
ers; but, contrary to a widespread misconception, the better 
types of fortification, like Verdun or Belfort, have as much im- 
portance today 4 as had any forts in the days of Marlborough, 
Conde,and Vauban. The true modern stronghold is designed with 
due regard to the indestructible barriers erected by Nature and 
with a fine understanding of their architecture, in order that the 
armyof defensemay ha veconfidencein the success of its operations. 

It is to the faint folding, therefore, rather than to the more 
pronounced southward dip of the rocks, that we must ascribe 
some of the linear features of the Battlefield of the Marne. 
The Dammartin line of heights ending near Meaux has already 
been mentioned (Fig. 56). Farther north, near Senlis, another 
ridge runs slightly south of east from the mound of Monte- 
pilloy, the main height being crowned by the village of Rozieres. 
Even more commanding and continuous is the long ridge of 
Villers-Cotterets, broken only at one point, near its center, by the 
Savieres headwater of the Ourcq and trending nearly due east 
from the Compiegne Forest to a point north of Fere-en-Tardenois, 
a distance of some 25 miles. Parallel valleys as well as parallel 
ridges must result from the folding, and undoubtedly the pro- 

4 H. F. P. J. von Freytag-Loringhoven: Deductions from the World War, New 
York, 1918, pp. 76-78, 94. 



238 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

nounced east-west (or slightly southeast-northwest) trend notice- 
able in the valleys of the plateau is in part to be ascribed to 
this cause, but in part also, perhaps, to the exposure of east-west 
belts of weaker rock due to the more pronounced and continuous 
southward dip of the cap-rock formation. Detailed examination 
and careful measurements of the rock layers appear to have 
demonstrated that the Petit Morin, Grand Morin, Marne, Aisne, 
and other rivers are in part located in shallow east-west synclines 
or parallel downwarped basins, above which the anticlinal arches 
usually rose less than one or two hundred feet. Elsewhere 
erosion has quite commonly attacked the exposed arches 
most vigorously, with the result that ridges or lines of hills re- 
main along the downwarped synclines. In either case the 
shallow folding brought about a parallelism of topographic lines. 5 
Add the fact that the concentric courses of the rivers flowing 
from the rim of the Paris Basin toward its center must be ex- 
pected to produce, in the eastern sector, one or more lines of valley 
and divide with an approximate east-west trend, and we have 
three factors involved in giving to the central Marne plateau a 
topographic trend at right angles to that of the succcession of 
cuestas and uplands farther east. Among the valleys which show 
this trend are the Ailette, Aisne, the upper Ourcq and many tribu- 
taries of the lower Ourcq, the larger tributaries of the Oise next 
south of the Aisne, the Petit Morin and the Grand Morin, and 
others of less importance. A map emphasizing the prevailing east- 
west trend of the lineaments of the plateau is shown in Figure 66. 

Military Significance of the Parallel Lineaments 
Pause for a moment and consider the military significance of 
this discordance in direction of topographic elements between 
the outer rims of the Paris Basin and its central core. From 
whatever direction an enemy approaches Paris he must run 
counter to the grain of the country at some stage of his advance. 

6 G. F. Dollfus: Recherches sur les ondulations des couches tertiaires dans le 
Bassin Parisien, Bull. Sen. de la Carte geol., Vol. 2, 1890, pp. 17-35; idem: Rela- 
tions entre la structure geologique du Bassin de Paris et son hydrographie, Ann. 
de Geogr., Vol. 9, 1900, pp. 413-433. 



MARNE PLATEAU 



239 



If he elects to fight the defenders on the outer walls and is suc- 
cessful in a direct attack against the east-facing escarpments, 
then he may flank the barriers of the central plateau and advance 
parallel with them. But if he seeks to flank the outer barriers 
by swinging far around to the north, where the scarps decrease 
in height and almost disappear owing to an imperfection in the 




Fig. 66 — Sketch map showing parallelism of topographic elements in the Marne 
plateau. Solid lines show general direction of some principal ridges, lines of hills, 
and escarpments; broken lines indicate prevailing trend of certain valleys. The 
predominance of southeast-northwest (often nearly east-west) directions is pro- 
nounced. 

basin structure, then his later southward advance will drive 
straight against the east-west barriers of the central plateau. 
The enemies of France in the period of the French Revolution 
and in the Napoleonic campaigns more than once attempted the 
former method, first suffering defeat on the outer walls but 
later reaching the core of the system and moving on Paris parallel 
with its ridge and valley system. The first attempt at outside 
interference with the French Revolution was defeated on the 



240 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

eastern face of the second or chalk escarpment at Valmy. When 
the Allies invaded France in 1813-1814, throwing Ney back 
from the seventh line of escarpment at Epinal, forcing Mortier 
from the fifth scarp at Langres, defeating him in several 
actions on the fourth in the region Chaumont-Bar-sur-Aube,* 
and forcing the line of the second scarp at the Vitry and Troyes 
gateways, thus reaching the central plateau, it was along the 
valley of the Marne that Bliicher directed his right column, while 
his left traversed the upland farther south, defiling between the 
marshy forests and ponds of eastern Brie on his north and the 
trench of the Petit Morin to the south. Defeated in this opera- 
tion by the genius of Napoleon, the Allies attempted a second 
and successful advance along the lines of the Petit Morin and 
the Grand Morin. In 1914 the Germans selected the second 
method for their main blow, flanking the east-facing barrier and 
striking directly south across the multiple obstacles of the upland. 

Nature of the Topographic Barriers 
Just what was the nature of these obstacles? The ridges and 
isolated buttes, rising in cases several hundred feet above the 
general level of the plateau (Dammartin line of hills 300 feet, 
Villers-Cotterets* ridge 325 feet) afforded vitally important 
observation over its broad surface and in a measure concealed 
from those who were denied this observation the movements 
of troops behind the barriers. These are few words, but they 
speak volumes in modern warfare. The consequences of utilizing 
such observation points to the best advantage, or of failing prop- 
erly to utilize them, in the four years' struggle on the Battlefield 
of the Marne will appear in the sequel. As for the valleys, their 
character rendered them formidable obstacles despite the rela- 
tively small size of most of the streams which traverse them. 
They are natural trenches or moats of giant size, from a few 
hundred to as much as three or four thousand yards across and 
several hundred feet deep (Figs. 67 and 68). Furthermore, the 
type of valley cross-profile most frequently found in the plateau 
favors excellent observation of enemy operations. Where the 

* Chaumont is 50 miles east-southeast, Bar-sur-Aube 30 miles east, of Troyes. 



MARNE PLATEAU 



241 



surface formations of a region are soft and unconsolidated and the 
underlying rock is resistant, valley walls and hill slopes are apt to 
be convex upward (Fig. 69, A), with the steepest slopes near the 
bottom. On such slopes there is no good military crest, and an 
enemy in the valley bottom may be quite invisible to an observer 
posted but a few feet above him. On the other hand, where 
there is a hard cap rock, with softer beds below, the profile is 




Fig. 67 — -Flooded floor of the Petit Morin valley, a tributary of the Marne which 
played an important role in preventing the British from effectively pursuing 
the Germans withdrawing northward during the 1914 Battle of the Marne. (French 
official photograph.) 



more likely to be concave upward, with the steepest slope at 
the top (Fig. 69, B). In this case the whole of the valley lies 
open to observation from the crest of either wall, and the slopes 
are exceptionally difficult of ascent. The Marne plateau, with 
its resistant calcareous cap rock and its underlying weak sands, 
usually gives valleys of the second type. Profiles of the type 
shown in Figure 69, B, are particularly well developed through- 
out the Soissonnais and Laonnois; and the Aisne and Ailette 
valleys, with the intervening Chemin des Dames, in any case 
formidable barriers as we have already seen (p. 231), derive 
much additional value as military obstacles from this circum- 



242 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 




? ''" J8ft "^ 




stance. Here the army 
which holds the crest en- 
joys a tremendous advan- 
tage over an enemy which 
must assault the fully ex- 
posed slopes. 

The valley bottoms usu- 
ally offer little forest cover 
for troops or artillery. 
Open meadows or culti- 
vated fields leave both 
exposed to accurately di- 
rected fire from above. To 
descend one valley wall, 
cross the open valley 
floor, and assault the steep 
Avail beyond, exposed the 
while to artillery, machine- 
gun, and rifle fire, would 
be a difficult task even 
were no further obstacle 
encountered. When there 
is added the necessity of 
bridging an unfordable 
river, or of constructing 
causeways across a 
treacherous morass under 
such fire, the difficulties 
imposed by Nature are 
further magnified. Many 
of the rivers of the plateau 
are impracticable except 
where bridged (Figs. 70 
and 71), and the passage 
of the Aisne by the Allied 
armies after the Battle of 



MARNE PLATEAU 



243 



A 

\ca/ ! 1 


B 


1 1 I 1 1 


- = 



the Marne proved a task of tremendous difficulty. Marshes are 
sufficiently numerous to add to the strength of the barriers, al- 
though not nearly so dangerous as in the Somme plain. 

Rivers subject to floods become yet more formidable during 
their periods of high water. Napoleon sometimes definitely 
counted on such obstacles in planning his battles, as when he 
wrote to Joseph in February, 18 14: "The Yeres [Yerres] is an 
overflowed river which is not fordable. It can cover the army at 

least three days. On the 
17th I shall be ready to 
attack." 6 We have ob- 
served that most of the 
rivers of the Somme 
battlefield are little sub- 
ject to flooding, because 
they rise and flow on the 
pervious chalk forma- 
tion, whereas those' on 
the impervious clay plain 
of the Flanders battle- 
field repeatedly inundate their valleys. The rivers of the Marne 
plateau in part originate on its composite formations, in part on 
the pervious chalk of the Dry Champagne, and in part on the 
impervious clays of the Wet Champagne, or even farther east. As 
a result their behavior is variable, but flooding is common. The 
Marne, subject to heavy floods in the Wet Champagne, has its 
flood waters decreased in crossing the broad belt of the pervious 
chalk plain of the Dry Champagne, but suffers to some extent in 
the plateau. The Aisne undergoes a similar moderation of its 
regime in the chalk plain but transmits enough of the flood waters 
to become a source of danger farther west. When the steep 
slopes of the plateau valleys shed rainfall or melting snows, 
particularly if the ground be already saturated by previous down- 
pours, the local floods may become dangerous or combine with 
floods from a more distant source to cause disastrous inundations. 

6 Dodge, Napoleon, Vol. 4, p. 378. 



Fig. 60 — Two types of valley profiles, in one 
of which (A) there is no good "military crest," 
and large concealed areas (c. a.) remain hidden 
from an observer (o) even when he is part way 
down the slope; whereas in the other type (B) 
all parts of the valley floor and walls are easily 
visible from the crest. 



244 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

It was a flood in the Aisne during the winter of 1914-1915 which, 
by destroying the military bridges over the river, isolated the 
French on the northern bank and compelled their retreat to a 
safer position south of the barrier (p. 296). Valleys which may 
artificially be inundated can quickly be transformed into serious 
military obstacles (Fig. 72). 

Observation Along the Valleys 

The remarkably straight courses of such rivers as the Aisne, 
Ardre, and Ailette afford exceptional opportunities for observa- 
tion and enfilading fire along the valleys from projecting spurs 
and thus render their passage by an enemy difficult and danger- 
ous. It was the capture of a spur near Fort Malmaison, giving the 
French observation eastward up the Ailette valley for 15 miles, 
which in 19 17 compelled the Germans to abandon their strong 
positions on the Chemin des Dames and retire north of the river 
barrier (p. 304). From a spur near the head of the rectilinear 
Ardre valley 9 miles southwest of Rheims an observer could sweep 
almost the entire 20 miles of its length and see any German move- 
ment on sixteen different roads and additional minor lanes leading 
southward to cross the river (Fig. 62). As the valley lay along the 
base of the great Marne salient, in which the Germans were busy 
during June and the first half of July, 1918, preparing their last 
great offensive by which they hoped to surprise and overwhelm 
the Allied armies, one can easily imagine the enormous value of 
accurate observation of their movements as they brought troops 
and supplies for the offensive into the salient from the north. To 
get an adequate idea of the character of observation possible with 
the aid of a good telescope, one would have to read the reports of 
observers prepared on blanks ruled for the recording of all infor- 
mation of possible military value, such as movements of trains on 
railways hour by hour, traffic on the roads, prosecution of enemy 
engineering works and the operations of artillery and other arms 
of the service. 

Thus from his vantage point at the head of the Ardre valley 
one observer noted between certain hours on July 1 1, four days 



MARNE PLATEAU 



245 



before the Germans struck their great blow, "65 camions, 25 
autos, 78 wagons, and 113 cavalry horses led by the bridle 
descending the north slope of the valley toward Crugny," thirteen 
miles distant; "24 camions, 4 autos, 185 wagons, and 181 cavalry- 
men going toward Hourges or Unchair; 22 wagons en route 
between Vandeuil and Savigny," and so on; another observer 




Fig. 70 — The valley of the Marne near Dormans, showing the wooded crest of 
the Marne plateau, the cleared valley walls and valley bottom, and German war 
material lost in attempting the passage of the barrier. (French official photograph.) 



noted that within the salient there was an "unusual circulation of 
men on foot and of cavalrymen" upon certain roads, "20 boches 
in Indian file" on another road, so many loaded wagons entering 
a certain village, "a group of boches stationed in the edge" 
of such a wood, men busy building camouflage to conceal certain 
roads, "a batallion, in sections spaced about 200 meters apart, 
descends the spur south of Bois le Pretre and goes toward the 
south, probably toward Villars Agron; 30 cavalrymen debouch 
from the same spot and follow the same route." These details 



246 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 



are summed up by the observers in general terms, as for example, 
in regard to movements on the roads: "Isolated men en route are 
very numerous, one sees them, everywhere and all day long going 
in every direction. The same is true of small groups of three or 
four men. Many cavalrymen come and go leading their horses 
by the bridle. Reconnaissances of the terrain by cavalrymen. 
In short, unusual activity of men on foot and cavalrymen, 
giving the impression of a densely occupied sector." 




Fig. 71 — Bridge over the Marne at Chateau-Thierry, destroyed to render passage 
of the natural barrier as difficult as possible. In the distance is seen the crest of 
the Marne plateau. (French official photograph.) 



Leaving out of account the importance of observation in con- 
trolling artillery fire, it will be evident that such reports as those 
quoted above, coming in from a large number of good observa- 
tories, must give the commanding officers quite a clear picture 
of what the enemy is doing behind his front. It was on the basis 
of such observations, supplemented of course from other sources, 
that Foch accurately gauged the Germans' preparations for 
their offensive of July 15, 1918, and made his own dispositions 
to combat them. The straight valleys, even when held in large 
part by the enemy, became serious obstacles to the successful 
prosecution of that enemy's designs. Hence the violent com- 
bats for possession of points giving observation along the valleys, 



MARNE PLATEAU 



247 



such as the Malmaison spur referred to above, dominating the 
Ailette valley, and Mont de Bligny (southwest of Rheims), dom- 
inating the Ardre valley. 

Napoleon's Campaign of 1814 on the Marne Plateau 

Such, then, are the several characteristics of the rivers and 
valleys of the Marne plateau which make them notable military 
obstacles. That they have played an important role in the 




Fig. 72 — The valley of the Vesle near Fismes inundated by the Germans to 
increase its defensive strength. In the right background is seen the crest of the 
Marne plateau. (French official photograph.) 



history of the Marne battlefield can easily be demonstrated. 
It is sufficient to take a single chapter from this history, such as 
Napoleon's brilliant campaign of 18 14, to see how largely the 
tactics and strategy of a great military leader must be affected 
by these elements of the terrain. As soon as Bliicher directed 
his advance on Paris, the retiring French forces under Macdonald 
sent back parties to seize and defend the vital crossings of the 
Marne at Chateau-Thierry and La Ferte-sous-Jouarre (Fig. 62), 
in order that, if defeated in front, they should not have an im- 
passable barrier in their rear. Later the French crossed the river 
at La Ferte and destroyed the bridges, to place a serious obstacle 
between themselves and their pursuers. Napoleon, having 



248 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

meanwhile come upon the scene and overwhelmed the enemy at 
Champaubert and Montmirail, drove the defeated Allies north- 
ward with the hope that Macdonald would have again seized 
the crossings there and so enable him to pin the fleeing army 
against the Marne barrier. He was disappointed, however, 
and was himself compelled to stop and bridge the obstacle. 
Leaving the pursuit to one of his lieutenants, he returned to the 
north bank of the Petit Morin, where he defeated Bliicher largely 
by the skillful use of cavalry on the level upland of the plateau 
near Vauchamps. Two days later he joined Oudinot, Victor, 
and Macdonald, who were standing behind the trench of the 
Yerres River facing Schwarzenberg's army, and, debouching from 
that defensive position, drove the enemy behind the Seine. This 
formidable barrier seriously delayed the French pursuit. The 
efforts of Macdonald and Oudinot to cross at Bray and Nogent 
failed, and the bridge at Montereau * was gained only after an 
all-day battle and after Napoleon himself had taken charge of the 
operation. The single crossing here was wholly insufficient. The 
Emperor was greatly annoyed and wrote to his brother: "It took 
us all day to pass that horrible defile of Montereau." Protected 
by the Seine below its bend at Mery, Schwarzenberg's army re- 
treated eastward behind the upper Seine above the bend, and 
later behind the Aube. It was to the obstacle which the Seine 
trench interposed between him and his enemy that Napoleon 
attributed the defeat of his designs. "If I had had a bridge 
equipage of ten pontoons," he wrote, "the war would be finished 
and Schwarzenberg's army would no longer exist. I should have 
taken his army in detail ; but wanting boats I could not cross the 
Seine, when I ought to have been able to cross at will." 7 

Bliicher, who had joined Schwarzenberg on orders but who 
chafed at retreating before a foe who had but two men to the 
Allies' five or more, now obtained permission to attempt another 
advance on Paris in conjunction with new Allied forces com- 
ing southward from Belgium. Opposing the latter menace was 

* Forty-five miles southeast of Paris, at the mouth of the Yonne. 
7 Dodge, Napoleon, Vol. 4, pp. 391, 403. 



MARNE PLATEAU 249 

a small French force holding the line of the Aisne at Soissons ; 
while the two French marshals, Marmont and Mortier, were 
maneuvering, the first to oppose Bliicher, who had driven him 
from the escarpment at Sezanne and the valley of the Grand 
Morin in the expectation of pinning him against the Marne, the 
second to control the vital crossings of the Marne barrier at 
Chateau-Thierry and La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. Both marshals 
were soon compelled to withdraw their very small armies behind 
the northeast-southwest barrier formed by the Ourcq-Marne 
valley, there to dispute Bliicher's advance on Paris. 

Now began a "Battle of the Ourcq" which in some of its phases 
foreshadowed another struggle that just one hundred years 
later was to bear the same name. Part of Bliicher's forces 
crossed the Ourcq near its junction with the Marne at Lizy while 
the remainder attacked the line of the Marne at Meaux. Defeated 
in the latter operation, Bliicher shifted more troops north to push 
the movement across the Ourcq. The French thereupon struck 
north, overwhelmed the vanguard which had crossed west of the 
river, and threw them back to the east bank. As Napoleon was 
approaching from the southeast, Bliicher withdrew all his forces 
opposite Meaux to the north bank of the Marne and destroyed 
the bridges, in order to put a formidable obstacle between himself 
and his dangerous antagonist. He likewise destroyed the bridges 
over the Ourcq, so was protected on the west by that river just as 
on the south by the Marne. Let the forces of the two marshals 
stand for the French Sixth Army under Maunoury attacking 
toward the Ourcq, Napoleon's forces for the British army 
advancing against the line of the Marne, and Bliicher's army 
of invasion for Von Kluck's army of invasion, and we have 
almost an exact parallel for one stage in the Battle of the 
Curcq of 1914. 

Bliicher now shifted forces farther north with the object of 
turning the left of the marshals' army, just as Von Kluck a 
hundred years later shifted his forces north to turn the left of 
Maunoury's army. In both cases the operation failed, in Bliicher's 
because he could not breach the Ourcq defenses. In both cases 



250 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

the Marne barrier, after holding the assailants at bay for a time, 
was ultimately forced; and in both cases the invaders thereupon 
fell back on the line of the Aisne and fought a battle on the 
heights of the Chemin des Dames. The same topography pro- 
duced in two campaigns a century apart a similarity of tactics 
and strategy which cannot fail to impress the student of military 
geography. 

Napoleon attributed Bliicher's escape from the Marne posi- 
tion to the delays caused by the river trench. He reached the 
river at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre on the afternoon of March I, 
but repairs on the bridge were not completed until the afternoon 
of March 3. It was difficult to maneuver successfully under 
these conditions. On March 2 he wrote his brother urging that 
bridge equipment be sent him from Paris, saying: "This morning 
I should have destroyed Bliicher if I had had one." 8 

We have seen that the line of the Aisne was held by a French 
garrison at Soissons. Bliicher's retreat was therefore embarrassed 
by the fact that he had an enemy on the barrier to which he was 
retiring. Napoleon's intention was to outmarch Bliicher and, 
by getting east of him, prevent his junction with the new Allied 
forces in Rheims; then, in conjunction with the army of the two 
marshals farther west, to pin the invaders back against the 
Aisne and defeat them. This design could be accomplished 
only in case the French held the passages of the river at Soissons 
long enough for Napoleon to dispose of Bliicher. Unfortunately 
the commanderat Soissons surrendered to some of the Allied rein- 
forcements before making proper resistance, and Bliicher with- 
drew his army safely behind the strong barrier. "When the 
Emperor learned of the fall of Soissons, he was bitterly angered 
by its slight resistance. Instead of being able with his whole 
force to fight Bliicher, cut off from his colleagues by an impass- 
able river, he would now, in order to reach him, be obliged to 
fight for his own passage against a force threefold his own." 

Bliicher now assembled his army on the strong position of the 
Chemin des Dames, leaving forces in the valley to defend the 

8 Dodge, Napoleon, Vol. 4, p. 413. 



MARNE PLATEAU 251 

passages across the natural moat that protected his front and 
extending his left to the crossing at Berry-au-Bac (Fig. 64). The 
invaders thus held the line of the Aisne on a front of 30 miles. 
Napoleon ordered Marmont and Mortier to force a passage at 
Soissons, Nansouty to seize the bridge at Berry-au-Bac, while 
other forces would throw temporary bridges over the river at 
two other points. Blucher was deceived into believing Napoleon 
would attack at Vailly and, in concentrating his forces on the 
upland north of that sector of the barrier, uncovered Berry-au- 
Bac, where Nansouty promptly seized the bridge by a surprise 
attack. At the west the barrier held firm against all assaults, but 
at the east both it and the Chemin des Dames were being turned 
by French forces hurrying forward from the Berry-au-Bac cross- 
ing to seize the stronghold of the Laon mesa in Bliicher's rear. 
By this operation Napoleon hoped to cut the invaders' line of 
retreat and pen them up in the angle between the Aisne and Oise 
Rivers. Blucher then moved part of his forces out to the east- 
ern end of the plateau to threaten from this dominating position 
the flank of the French columns advancing northward on the 
plain below, and so compel them to fight, while with the remain- 
der of his army he should retire on Laon. The maneuver was 
successful, for while Napoleon won the "Battle of Craonne," the 
attack on the strong Chemin des Dames position was so difficult 
and occupied the Emperor so fully that Blucher easily effected 
his intended retirement. The steep northern face of the upland, 
the deep ravines scouring its southern wall, the slopes fully 
exposed to artillery fire from above, the numberless ditches in the 
wet plain below, all combined to make the attacks of the French 
extremely arduous. Again and again they were hurled back down 
the slopes, and not until Blucher, assured of his safe retreat 
to Laon, gave orders to begin withdrawing from the Chemin des 
Dames, did the French secure a permanent foothold on the up- 
land and drive off the remaining Allies. The line of the Aisne 
was lost to Blucher, but he assembled his troops for a new 
battle about the natural fortress of Laon, where every effort of 
Napoleon to dislodge them was murderously repulsed. 



252 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

Schwarzenberg's army was once more threatening, and Napo- 
leon now instructed his lieutenants to destroy the bridge at Berry - 
au-Bac if necessary and to spare no effort to hold Bliicher north 
of the Aisne barrier as long as possible, while he set off to deal 
with the new danger. Bliicher remained ten days behind the 
Aisne before moving southeast to effect a junction with Schwarz- 
enberg, who had defeated Napoleon on the line of the Aube 
(p. 263). Then began a new and joint advance on Paris by way 
of the Grand and the Petit Morin, while the Emperor vainly tried 
to draw them away from the capital by attacking their commu- 
nications in the east. Paris was entered, and the remarkable 
campaign was over. Is it too much to say that throughout its 
brief but brilliant history the natural trenches of the Marne 
plateau exercised a decisive influence upon the tactics and 
strategy of the opposing forces, if not, as Napoleon apparently 
believed, upon the final results? 

The role played by these same obstacles in the World War will 
become clear as we review the military operations from 19 14 to 
1918 on the Battlefield of the Marne (Chapter VI). 

THE CHAMPAGNE 

Bounded on the west by the high escarpment of the central 
plateau, the low, rolling chalk plain of the Dry Champagne rises 
gradually eastward until it drops off abruptly in a second 
escarpment facing the verdure-clad lowland of the Wet Cham- 
pagne. For the present our chief interest is in the chalk country, 
which is but the southeastward continuation of the same rock we 
learned to know in the Battlefield of the §omme. Let us examine 
first the border lands of this region and then compare the plain 
itself with the chalk plain of the Somme country. 

When seen from a distance the escarpment of the Marne pla- 
teau appears as an even-crested slope, its steep upper portion 
usually covered with trees while the gentler declivities below are 
planted with vineyards (Fig. 73). The evenness of the crest, due 
to the level character of the upland surface, robs it of some of its 
impressiveness ; yet it rises from 400 to 600 feet above the level 



THE CHAMPAGNE 



253 



of the plain. Because the surface cap rocks were beveled across 
by erosion (p. 226), different layers form the crest at different 
places, giving some variety of aspect; and because the rocks are 
warped into shallow folds and unevenly attacked by the under- 
mining processes of erosion, the escarpment shows deep re- 
entrants and projecting salients, the re-entrants often coinciding 
with the shallow down-folds, or synclines, the salients with the 
up-folds, or anticlines. This emphasizes the character of the 




Fig. 73 — Escarpment of the Marne plateau south of Epernay as seen from the 
plain of Champagne. The steep upper slopes on the calcareous cap rock are 
wooded, the lower slopes on the underlying sand and chalk formations are covered 
with vineyards. 



plateau as a natural fortress, in which projecting bastions alter- 
nate with re-entrant curtains (Fig. 62). Of the bastions the 
Mountain of Rheims is the highest and the farthest advanced into 
the plain, while in the well-defined curtains on the north and 
south are located the cities of Rheims and Epernay. Because of 
its fortress form and because of the magnificent observation far 
out over the plain from its summit, the escarpment is a military 
obstacle of much significance. 

Outliers of the plateau, in the form of buttes or mesas, are less 
numerous and less striking than on the borders of the Laonnois 
to the northwest. Yet they are not unknown and possess a high 
military value. Most important of all are the three near Rheims 
lying in a northwest-southeast alignment between the Vesle and 



254 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

Suippe Rivers (Fig. 62) — the butte of Brimont, Berru mountain, 
and the Moronvilliers massif (Fig. 75), each capped by the higher 
plateau formations and covered with forests. They rise respec- 
tively 200, 530, and 500 feet, approximately, above the chalk 
plain, and from the earliest days were utilized as lookout points 
and defensive positions by the primitive inhabitants. Together 
with the Mountain of Rheims bastion between the Marne and 
Vesle and the smaller St. Thierry bastion between the Vesle and 
Aisne, these outlying buttes completely encircle the Rheims cur- 
tain with dominating heights, forming what is frequently called 
the "Rheims Basin" (Fig. 74). Here the chalk has a composition 
giving less dry and infertile soils, is mixed with wash from the 
plateau beds above, and, especially when covered with limon, 
proves rich enough to support a denser population than other 
parts of the Champagne. The chalk also furnishes a good build- 
ing stone which has been so extensively quarried as to leave the 
region honeycombed with vast subterranean caverns, utilized as 
wine cellars in time of peace but capable of sheltering whole 
armies in time of war. Close to the Aisne, Vesle, and Marne 
gateways through the plateau scarp and on the historic pathway 
skirting the plateau on the level plain, Rheims is a center from 
which radiate five main and several smaller railways, a larger 
number of principal highways, and innumerable minor roads, 
not to mention canal connections with the Aisne and Marne. All 
these features combined to make the Rheims Basin a stronghold 
of the highest military and political importance, and the heights 
have long been fortified to transform the basin into one of the 
great entrenched camps of France. 

The Chalk Escarpment 

The second line of escarpment, terminating the chalk plain 
on the east, is far less imposing. Usually rising not more than 
100 to 300 feet, sometimes less, above the flat plain of the Wet 
Champagne, the dissected cuesta hardly deserves the name 
"Monts de Champagne" given to the typical portion between the 
Aisne gateway at Rethel and the Marne gateway at Vitry-le- 



THE CHAMPAGNE 255 

Francois (Fig. 56). Nevertheless, the "Monts" are striking fea- 
tures, their white or gray slopes contrasting strongly with the rich 
green of the plain below, even when the white shows only in 
patches between the rows of a plantation of pines. Elevations of a 
hundred feet or more give commanding observation over the low 
clay plain to the east, conceal the western slope of the chalk plain, 
and deflect many roads and railways to the easier routes through 
such gateways as Rethel, Vitry, and Troyes. Hence the military 
significance of the second escarpment. The Battle of Valmy, 
on the face of the scarp northeast of Chalons, which rolled back 
the tide of hostile invasion in 1792 and so altered history as to 
make the engagement one of the decisive battles of the world; 
the great roles played by the Troyes, Vitry, and Aube gateways 
in the Napoleonic campaign of 18 14; the important fighting at 
the Rethel and Vitry gateways in the fall of 1914 — these are but 
a few episodes in the military history of this important crest. 

With the northern and southern limits of the Champagne we 
are not here primarily concerned. Suffice it to say that south of 
the Seine the chalk is soon masked by an overlying formation 
which gives a new topography, making a special geographic pro- 
vince. To the north, beyond the Aisne, there is a gradual transi- 
tion to the type of country found in the chalk plain of Picardy, a 
transition so evident that the natives speak of the better soil as 
terres de Picardie. Precise limits for the true Champagne need 
not be sought, for our interest is centered in the typical chalk 
lands well within its boundaries between the Aisne on the north 
and the Seine on the south. 

Character of the Chalk Plain 

From the base of the western scarp to the crest of the eastern, 
the chalk plain of the Dry Champagne rises almost imperceptibly 
in faint undulations. Near the western border the vineyards 
descend the scarp slopes and spread out over the gently rolling 
surface (Fig. 59) , as far as wash from the limestone cap rock gives 
a favorable soil. Farther east the white surface of the more barren 
chalk begins to appear, blotched here and there with the somber 



256 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 






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THE CHAMPAGNE 



257 




258 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

hue of pine woods planted by man (Fig. 60). This is the real 
Champagne as one sees it today. As far as the eye can sweep the 
horizon there is not an object higher than a tree to arrest the 
vision, unless one happens to be near one of the few isolated ero- 
sion buttes which diversify the otherwise monotonous plain. The 
surface is more nearly level, less noticeably undulating than is 
the chalk plain of the Somme. Indeed, over vast areas the coun- 
try is almost as flat as the Flanders plain, the valleys lie almost 
on the surface, and one cannot speak of an "upland" as we did in 
describing the Battlefield of the Somme. Only in the narrow belt 
along the eastern margin of the chalk, where the upward-sloping 
plain has attained its highest elevation and streams cut into it 
to the lower level of the Wet Champagne beyond, is there any- 
thing to compare with the Thiepval and other so-called "plateaus" 
bordering the Ancre and Somme valleys. Here also are the only 
ravines of any depth and importance, carved by the numerous 
streams descending the steeper slope. If the plain of Picardy and 
Artois is monotonous as to form, that of most of the Champagne 
is doubly so. 

There is no need to describe in detail all the physical character- 
istics of the Champagne, the nature and behavior of the rock 
underlying its surface, and their effect on military operations. 
To do so would be in large measure to repeat what has already 
been said in describing the Battlefield of the Somme. For it is 
the same rock which underlies the terrain in both cases, the same 
white, fissured, pervious chalk. In both cases the structure is of 
the simplest: in one, faintly folded, in the other, faintly tilted 
toward the centerof the Paris Basin; but in neither case departing 
greatly from horizontality. In both the erosion history has been 
much the same. Now, the same kind of rocks having the same 
general structure and subjected to the same erosive forces should 
produce much the same topography. It will be sufficient, there- 
fore, if we compare the chalk plain of Champagne with the chalk 
plain of the Somme region, pointing out those elements of resem- 
blance and contrast most important to the student of military 
geography. 



THE CHAMPAGNE 259 

Aridity of the Plain 

Like the plain of the Somme, the plain of Champagne is arid 
because the fissured chalk permits the water to descend too far 
below the surface for plant roots to reach it. The Champagne is 
indeed much the more arid of the two, for it lacks both the wide- 
spread deposits of the clay-and-flint formation and the fertile 
loam which in Picardy held enough water on the surface to 
support a virgin forest and later an abundant agriculture. In 
Champagne the bare white chalk shows at the surface, not merely 
as white splotches on steeper slopes, but over vast stretches of 
the level surface. As a result the vegetation history in the two 
regions has been reversed. In Picardy the land was originally 
forest-clad, and the labors of man changed it into a treeless region 
in order to make the fertile soil produce rich harvests. In Cham- 
pagne the land appears to have been originally a barren desert, 
but man has labored diligently to give it a forest cover by plant- 
ing pines, the only thing he could make the sterile soil produce 
(Fig. 75). The monotony of form, so much more pronounced in 
the Champagne, is relieved in a measure by frequent and ex- 
tensive patches of woodland, something practically unknown in 
the Somme country, where even small copses but seldom inter- 
rupt the treeless expanse. 

The natural barrenness of the Champagne is due not only to its 
greater aridity but also to the absence of the fertilizing elements 
contained in the loam of Picardy and to the further fact that the 
chalk crumbles so badly as to afford a poor root-hold for trees. 
When too wet it loses all solidity, and when dry it blows away, 
exposing the roots to the danger of freezing if cold weather comes. 9 
Broad areas of the plain still remain in the condition which 
justified Michelet's characterization of it as "a melancholy sea of 
stubble spreading over a plain of plaster." One might travel for 
hours seeing only the boundless white plain and the arching blue 
sky, with never a tree or a bush in sight. So poor was the land 
it gave rise to the saying that in the Champagne an acre of land, 
when it had a hare on it, was worth just two francs. Today the 

9 Emile Chantriot: La Champagne: Etude de geographie regionale, Paris, 1906, 
p. 125. 



260 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

pine plantations have softened the harshness of the landscape, 
and near the villages the unending toil of the farmer has created 
ever-expanding oases where careful fertilizing enables the natu- 
rally sterile soil to yield a harvest of cereals and other produce. 
Still the Champagne is, over much of its extent, a country for 
sheep raising, pine growing, and hunting. Nothing could be more 
desolate than the arid wastes of the great Camp of Chalons, in 
the midst of the flat chalk plain. 

Military Aspects of the Plain 

Nor could a land be better adapted to military maneuvers. Attila 
chose it as best suited to the operation of his cavalry hosts, and 
modern military leaders have confirmed his judgment. The level 
surfaces, the absence of serious topographic obstacles, the dryness 
of the soil, the large open spaces almost devoid of vegetation, and 
the cheapness of the land led Napoleon III to establish the Camp 
of Chalons as a field for military displays and maneuvers on a grand 
scale. Today its level wastes constitute a modern entrenched 
camp of the first importance, a field for long-distance artillery 
practice and for the exercise of other arms of the service, and a 
point of concentration for an army in case of war. Thirty miles 
farther south is the equally vast Camp of Mailly, covering the 
more hilly topography of a subsidiary terrace or cuesta of the chalk, 
just west of the main escarpment near Vitry-le-Francois, and 
serving as a garrison camp as well as a field of maneuver. Another 
variant of the Champagne topography is organized into an en- 
trenched camp at Rheims (p. 254). The city of Chalons partakes 
of the martial character of the land and is a military and adminis- 
trative center rather than a center of commerce and industry. 

Trench warfare found its best habitat in the Champagne. Not 
only does the water drain readily from the pervious chalk, but the 
clay and loam which proved such a curse when rains deluged the 
plain of the Somme are generally lacking. Trenches, dugouts, and 
tunnels were usually dry, and the subterranean cellars and 
caverns in the chalk offered warm and dry shelter to the com- 
batants. The vicissitudes of the weather wreak less havoc with 



THE CHAMPAGNE 261 

military plans on such a terrain. Roads are plentiful in every 
direction and most of the time are in fair condition; while the 
construction of the networks of new roads and railways made 
necessary by a war of position encountered a minimum of diffi- 
culty in this nearly level country. In all the broad expanse of 
the chalk Champagne only three tunnels for the standard rail- 
ways were found necessary, and all of these are small ones pierc- 
ing the crest of the eastern escarpment. On the main surface of 
the plain no engineering works of importance were needed. 

As in the plain of the Somme, so in the Champagne the sinking 
of water far below the surface of the fissured chalk causes the pop- 
ulation to congregate in compact villages around communal wells. 
Springs and surface streams are comparatively rare, and out of 
104 communes in the arrondissement of Chalons-sur-Marne, 97 
draw all their water from wells, some of which are very deep. 10 
Scattered farmhouses are rare, and smaller villages (often less 
than 100 inhabitants) than those in the richer plains of Picardy, 
separated by wider expanses of uninhabited plain, are the rule. 
Hence positional warfare developed the same fortified village 
strong points, buttressing the trench systems, that became typical 
of the fighting on the Somme. Even in the more humid valleys 
the villages are usually isolated, and only exceptionally,' as in the 
upper Vesle valley east of Chalons, do they spread along the 
stream to coalesce with each other and form a continuous belt of 
habitations several miles in length. Unlike the villages of the 
Somme region, however, they conceal themselves in the depres- 
sions of the undulating plain; for there is no rich upland loam to 
attract the peasants to the heights, and in hollows the wells do 
not have to pass through so much chalk before reaching the 
groundwater level. Hence the country, poor and sparsely popu- 
lated though it be, appears less inhabited than is really the case. 

Rivers of the Champagne 

We found that in the chalk plain of the Somme surface streams 
were not numerous, forming only in the major valleys which 

10 Chantriot, La Champagne, p. 122. 



262 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

reached the groundwater level lying deep in the pervious rock, 
while shallower ravines were dry; that the streams which did 
form were clear and tranquil because fed by perennial springs 
from the underground supply; and that in their tranquil waters 
extensive peat bogs formed. In the clay plain of Flanders, 
where the impervious soil increased surface run-off, the regime 
of the rivers was very different. Streams were numerous and 
fed by an indefinite number of branches; their waters were 
muddy and frequently spread in floods over the land — conditions 
unfavorable to the formation of peat. 

The rivers of the Dry Champagne belong to two classes. First 
are those which rise on the chalk plain itself and therefore resem- 
ble the rivers of the chalk plain of the Somme. They are fed 
by springs, often a single big spring called the source, or "somme," 
of the river, as Somme-Py, the source of the Py; Somme-Suippe, 
the source of the Suippe; Somme- Vesle, the source of the 
Vesle; and many another which catches the eye on a detailed map 
of the region, for about each spring a village has grown up and 
taken the name of the water which gave it birth. These rivers 
have few branches, their waters are clear and tranquil, floods are 
rare, and they flow through marshy peat bogs. They are, in 
short, the typical rivers of a chalk country and hence of some 
importance as military barriers. Between them lie broad bands 
of undulating arid plain in which dry. shallow hollows endlessly- 
alternate with dry, rounded swells. 

The second class of rivers in the Dry Champagne are those 
which rise on the impervious surface of the Wet Champagne or 
receive numerous and important tributaries from that or similar 
regions. They enter the chalk plain already endowed with the 
characteristics of the Flanders rivers: muddy waters, a volume 
which varies from less than normal in dry seasons to dangerous 
floods at other times, and a valley floored with much alluvium 
but comparatively little peat. In the chalk plain itself they 
receive few tributaries, and part of the flood waters are absorbed 
by the fissured rock. But the characters acquired in the upper 
parts of their basins cannot be wholly changed, and traversing 



THE CHAMPAGNE 263 

the Dry Champagne these rivers form a class by themselves. 
The Seine rises on pervious, calcareous formations southeast 
of the Wet Champagne and is so little influenced by its short 
passage across the impervious belt that it is unusually free from 
floods in this part of its course and is bordered by extensive peat 
deposits. It belongs rather with the first class of streams typical 
of the chalk. The Marne, on the other hand, rising in part on 
impervious beds and receiving some important affluents in the 
Wet Champagne, carries floods throughout its course across 
the Dry Champagne, filling its bed with alluvium and forming 
very little peat. The Aisne, draining a far greater area of the 
impervious belt east of the chalk, floods its valley repeatedly 
and forms almost no peat. But, though they lack the treacherous 
bogs of the chalk rivers, the broad valleys of the Marne and 
Aisne, often floored with marshy meadows and traversed by an 
unfordable stream even when not in flood, oppose serious difficul- 
ties to the movements of an army. 

Military Value of the Rivers and Valleys 

Both classes of rivers may, therefore, in a region relatively 
free from topographic accidents, serve as valuable defensive 
barriers or as dangerous obstacles, as the case may be. It was 
flagrant disregard of the natural obstacles found in the valley 
of the Aube that near the close of the 18 14 winter campaign 
led Napoleon into the most dangerous topographic trap he ever 
occupied. The town of Arcis-sur-Aube lies on the southern bank 
of the river, 33 miles south of Chalons, on a level and open plain 
bordered on the south by a semicircle of low chalk hills. On the 
north the river could be crossed by one bridge only; and just be- 
yond lay a belt of marshes which must be traversed by a narrow 
defile. It was on the plain south of the Aube that Napoleon had 
stationed his army, with the enemy holding the semicircle of 
dominating heights on three sides and the almost impassable 
barrier in the rear. "At the view of this absolutely fatal situa- 
tion, he lost not for a moment his presence of mind. He recog- 
nized his strategic error and saw that he was outmaneuvered; 



264 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

he saw how ill he had reconnoitered ; he understood his peril." 11 
From this trap Napoleon escaped only because Schwarzenberg 
had made all his dispositions to receive an attack, not to deliver 
one; and while his enemy waited the Emperor planned his 
dangerous retreat. As it was, the French lost 5,000 men to the 
Allies' 300. 

The valleys gain in military significance because they function 
as more than usually important highways of travel and are the 
centers of the densest population. From eastern France to 
Paris the valley of the Marne is the most vital artery, the Nancy- 
Paris railway running through it being paralleled by the Marne 
canal and by important highways. The flood waters of the river 
renew periodically the richness of the valley soils and encourage 
the growth of forage, cereals, and vegetables in quantities suf- 
ficient to support a population which in the Champagne must 
be considered large. The valley of the Suippe is an oasis occu- 
pied by a large industrial population. Nearness to transportation 
attracts the quarrying industries, with the result that the valley 
trenches gain strength as defensive lines from numerous excava- 
tions admirably adapted to serve as shelters from artillery fire. 
Strategic crossing points along the chief valleys early gained a 
military renown which they often preserve under conditions of 
modern warfare. Berry-au-Bac and Chalons are familiar names 
in the communiques of the late war which conjure up memories 
of the Napoleonic and other historic campaigns. 

Changed River Courses 

It will be noticed that, while some of the rivers flow down the 
gentle westward slope of the Champagne to enter the plateau 
scarp through natural gateways, others flow westward toward the 
escarpment only to turn abruptly north or south to join the 
Marne or Aube. Thus the Soude almost reaches the scarp near 
Blucher's old headquarters at Vertus, but turns north to the 
Marne. The little Somme and the Vaure head straight for the 
gateway of the Petit Morin, but, just before reaching the St. 

11 Dodge, Napoleon, Vol. 4, p. 450. 



THE CHAMPAGNE 



265 



Gond marshes lying in the gateway, the Somme turns north to the 
Marne, the Vaure south toward the Aube. The Maurienne 
branch of the Superbe pursues the westward course nearly to 
Sezanne, then turns south to flow into the Aube. Curiously 
enough the original direction of the Soude valley is continued 
westward on the plateau by the valley of the Surmelin, which 
heads in a notch in the crest of the scarp, although there is no 
stream at present to carve such a notch (Fig. 62). So also the 





\ 


Jfg-n£- ^___ 


,fc- ^ Si ^'^ miTn 


n n /H& 


C *- ^^ 




* ^ 


-=4ajg 


y^^^ 





Fig. 76 — Supposed former courses of the Soude, Somme, 
Vaure, and Maurienne. (After Davis.) 



courses of the upper Somme and Vaure are continued by the val- 
ley of the Petit Morin, while that of the Maurienne is in line with 
a deep notch in the scarp at Sezanne continued westward as the 
valley of the Grand Morin. To the geographer this assemblage of 
features tells a remarkable story of successive river captures, 
which has been fully set forth in a classic essay by Davis. 12 Before 
the weak rocks of the Champagne were worn down by erosion so 
far below the plateau level, the Soude continued westward as the 
Surmelin (Fig. 76). A branch of the Marne, gnawing its way 
southward along the weaker beds, captured the upper part of 
the stream and turned its waters northward to the main river. 
As the capture took place early, before the Soude-Surmelin had 

12 W. M. Davis: The Seine, the Meuse, and the Moselle, in his "Geographical 
Essays," Boston, 1909, pp. 587-616. 



266 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

deeply entrenched itself, the notch in the plateau upland is not 
very deep, although sufficiently so to cut through the cap rock. 
Later the Maurienne portion of the original Maurienne-Grand 
Morin river was captured in a similar manner by a branch of the 
Aube; but not until it had deeply entrenched itself. Hence the 
old valley notch at Sezanne is so deep that a railway takes advan- 
tage of it to enter the plateau. Finally, very recently as the 
geologist would count time, the Somme and Vaure were captured 
and the former turned north with the Soude into the Marne, 
the latter south with the Maurienne into the Aube. So late, 
indeed, was this capture that the Somme-Vaure-Petit Morin 
river had cut down to the present level of the plain, and the aban- 
doned portion of the valley, partially blocked with debris brought 
in by side ravines in the edge of the plateau, filled with stagnant 
water forming the St. Gond marshes (Fig. 77), out of the western 
end of which the Petit Morin still flows. 

Such is the origin of a curious marshland, 12 miles long by 2 
miles or more in breadth, which has played an interesting 
role in the military history of the Champagne. It is an east- 
west barrier, crossed from north to south by several roads on 
causeways and bridges. To one looking out over its broad 
expanse of reeds and grass, broken by occasional tree clumps, 
the marsh presents an aspect dreary in the extreme. Drainage 
ditches have been constructed and the streams confined between 
dikes, in an effort to reclaim the clay-floored basin. But when 
heavy rains fall the waters rise and overflow the meadows, and 
the whole region becomes an impassable swamp. The cause- 
ways are low, and as the roads are not metaled they soon become 
mired. Even in dry weather the reclamation is not complete 
enough to make it safe for an army to maneuver at will over the 
low surface, while the roads can be held under accurate artillery 
fire directed from the surrounding heights. 

Hills of the Champagne 

The hills of the Champagne, as well as the rivers, valleys, and 
marshes, rank as important military obstacles. Of the formidable 



THE CHAMPAGNE 



267 



bounding scarps, prime elements in the defensive system against 
an enemy approaching from the east, no more need be said. 
Against a hostile advance from the north the outlying erosion 
remnants of the plateau formations, left isolated on the chalk 
plain, have a high value when properly disposed. Mont Aime 
and the hill of Toulon north of the St. Gond marshes, Mont Aout 
and the plateau spurs nearMontdement on the south (Fig. 62), help 




Fig. 77 — The St. Gond marshes, which prolong the Petit Morin barrier 
eastward into the Champagne and which proved an obstacle of some tactical im- 
portance in the First Battle of the Marne. (French official photograph.) 

make the passage of the marsh barrier in either direction more 
difficult. The butte northwest of Neufchatel-sur-Aisne would 
serve to protect a bridgehead north of the Aisne barrier. But 
it is the line of buttes north and east of Rheims — Brimont, 
Berru, and Moronvilliers (p. 254) — which do most to bar inva- 
sion of the plain from the north. They form a natural pro- 
longation of the east-west defensive line of the Chemin des 
Dames and Aisne, or Aisne- Vesle, and, via the hills north of 
the Suippe near Somme-Py and the ridges and ravines of the 
Monts de Champagne near Monthois,* may be connected with 
the Argonne barrier at the pass of Grand pre.* Brimont and 

* Monthois is 33 miles, Grandpre 42 miles east of Rheims. 



268 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

Berru still bear on their summits masses of the higher plateau 
formations; but from the great Moronvilliers massif (Fig. 75) 
the beds above the chalk -have been almost completely removed 
by erosion. It rises from the forest-splotched white plain north 
of the Camp of Chalons as a sprawling mass with subdued 
profiles, formerly black with forests, today stripped of its cover 
and showing white, like a snow-clad mound, with the chalk 
plowed up by countless shells. From its summit the whole 
broad plain for miles in every direction lies under observation. 
It was inevitable, therefore, that it should form a strong point 
in the system of natural defenses seized by the invaders in 19 14 
and hotly disputed till the end of the war. 



CHAPTER VI 

MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE BATTLEFIELD 
OF THE MARNE 

The First Battle of the Marne 

In the last days of August, 1914, the British and the French 
Fifth Armies, retreating before the onrush of the powerful Ger- 
man right wing, halted for a brief space behind the defensive 
barrier of the Oise River. This stream cuts from northeast to 
southwest obliquely across the northwestern margin of the Marne 
plateau, lopping off the western ends of the Laonnois and Sois- 
sonais; so the retreat was carrying the struggle into the Battle- 
field of the Marne. On August 29 the British fell back on the 
strong position of the Chemin des Dames plateau north of the 
Aisne trench between Soissons and Compiegne. The extreme 
left of the Allied line formed by the French Sixth Army was 
coming into position along the Oise from Compiegne to Verberie, 
whence it extended westward past Clermont to Beauvais along 
the edge of a westward projection of the Brie plateau. 

On September 1 General Joffre gave the order for a continued 
retreat toward, and if necessary behind, the Seine-Aube barrier. 
This meant that no permanent stand was to be made on the 
northern barriers of the Marne plateau, however strong they 
might be tactically and however squarely they might oppose the 
southward advance of the invaders. The Allied armies had been 
caught unprepared, they had been severely handled at Mons and 
during the retreat, and were not yet ready to engage the supreme 
struggle. Broad considerations affecting the extent of the stra- 
tegic retreat and the proper moment for resuming the offensive 
dictated a further retirement; and the strong line of the Seine 
was set as the possible limit. 



270 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

An earlier order of the generalissimo, the famous "Instruction 
Generale" of August 25 which first directed the general retreat, 
had emphasized the importance of employing natural obstacles 
for arresting the enemy's pursuit. "The movement will be cov- 
ered by rearguards left behind favorable depressions of the 
terrain, in such manner as to utilize every obstacle to arrest by 
short and violent counterattacks, in which artillery shall form 
the principal element, the enemy's march, or at least to retard 
it." In compliance with this instruction rearguard actions were 
fought on a number of the northern barriers. Thus in falling 
back from the line of the Aisne, the British temporarily stood 
behind the valley of the Authonne, a branch of the Oise south of 
the Forest of Compiegne and the first east-west trench after 
leaving the Aisne. The northern wall of the trench is unfortu- 
nately higher than, and commands, the southern wall; and a vig- 
orous onslaught by the Germans soon carried the position. In 
retiring farther south the British held for a time the Montepilloy- 
Rozieres ridge, *while forces of the French Sixth Army fought a 
delaying action along the line of the Nonette, the next east-west 
trench south of the Authonne, against heavy German forces seek- 
ing to debouch from Senlis.* Maunoury's Sixth Army shifted to 
the east side of the Oise and in the first days of September was 
basing on the northern defenses of Paris, its left standing on the 
plain north of the ridge of Montmorency,* its center advanced 
near the Dammartin ridge,* and its extreme right near the Marne 
in front of the heights of Vaujours, with headquarters on the forti- 
fied butte of Ecouen,* an outlier of the Montmorency massif. The 
British army now lay behind the great Marne barrier, from the 
eastern end of the Vaujours ridge at Lagny * to near the impor- 
tant crossing of La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, executing General Joffre's 
instructions "to defend the passages of the river as long as pos- 
sible, and to blow up the bridges" along its front. 1 This work of 

* Montepilloy-Rozieres ridge is 27 miles NE, Senlis 24 miles NNE, Montmo- 
rency ridge 10 miles N, Dammartin ridge 18 miles NE, Vaujours ridge 9 miles ENE, 
Ecouen 8 miles N, Lagny 14 miles E, of Paris. 

1 Sir John French: Despatches: Mons; The Marne; The Aisne; Flanders, London, 
1914. P- 25. 



FIRST MARNE BATTLE 271 

delaying the enemy accomplished, the British on September 4 
fell back behind the line of the Grand Morin. 

During the retreat of the extreme left wing of the Allies, the 
armies of the center and right (considering only the front west of 
Verdun) were rapidly falling back in accordance with the order 
of September I, fighting rearguard actions where undue pressure 
by the enemy or a favorable terrain made it advisable. The direc- 
tion of the main German advance — from the north— outflanked 
the north-south escarpments east of Paris, so there was no 
opportunity for a real test of the strength of those defenses. 
German strategy was so ordered as deliberately to avoid that 
test. It was for the Germans "a matter of life and death" to 
sweep through the Belgian plain and gain the Marne plateau 
with all possible speed, before Russia could become dangerous. 
To advance from the Franco-German border directly westward 
across the formidable concentric walls would mean a succession 
of battles, each undertaken with the terrain wholly in favor of the 
defending forces. 2 Paris could not possibly be reached until 
after a long and costly campaign; and meanwhile the Russian 
bear might be knocking at the doors of Berlin. 

To meet and defeat the German maneuver Joffre undertook a 
retreat which should pivot on the solid buttress of the fortified 
camp of Verdun on the east, the topography of which rendered 
it a practically impregnable bastion (p. 387). When the exi- 
gencies of the situation had carried the retreat so far that the 
Allied left wing had swung back nearly to Paris without the 
development of conditions favorable for the resumption of the 
offensive, his orders envisaged the further retreat of the center 
to the natural defensive line of the Seine-Aube valley, the right 
still pivoting on Verdun and the left on the entrenched camp 
of Paris with its fortress-crowned parallel ridges. As a result, 
between the terminal buttresses the center would bend far south 
until the Germans were caught in a great strategic salient and 
subjected to simultaneous attacks from the west, south, and east. 

2 D. W. Johnson: Topography and Strategy in the War, New York, 1917, pp. 
20-25. 



272 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

It was because of this plan of campaign that the various armies 
had made no determined stand on the northern defenses of the 
Marne plateau ; and it was because the maneuver was still in pro- 
cess of execution when orders were suddenly issued to stop the re- 
treat, that the Allied front showed little adjustment to the 
topographic features of the battlefield. The British extreme left 
was still north of the Grand Morin, while its center and right had 
abandoned the defense of that trench and were falling back 
toward the Seine. The French Fifth Army, next east of the 
British and now under command of General d'Esperey, was fall- 
ing back with its front obliquely across the grain of the country, 
its left lying successively behind different branches of the Yerres 
and Grand Morin, its right near the crest of the plateau scarp 
west of Sezanne.* Foch's Ninth Army, earlier assembled north of 
the Aisne and put 'into line between the Fifth and Fourth, 
retreated over the Champagne plain until it stood behind the St. 
Gond marshes, with its right extending eastward to rest on the 
entrenched Camp of Mailly.* De Langle de Cary's Fourth Army 
paused with its left holding the hills of the chalk cuesta just south 
of the Vitry gateway,* its center and right protected by the 
marshy valleys of the Saulx and Ornain, parallel branches of the 
Marne, and the Marne Canal, in the difficult terrain of the Wet 
Champagne. Sarrail's Third Army, including the mobile garrison 
of Verdun, continued the front northeastward across the Wet 
Champagne to connect with the great Verdun bastion. Joffre's 
strategic salient was established, but was not as deep as contem- 
plated; the terminal buttresses held firm, but between them the 
front sometimes lay obliquely astride serious obstacles, at other 
times in secure positions behind them. Back of the German front, 
however, lay a series of east-west topographic barriers in a hostile 
country, across which their over-extended lines of communication 
had to be maintained at a great expense in men and energy. Con- 
ditions were on the whole favorable for an Allied counterblow. 

In the meantime Von Kluck's First Army, now separated from 

* Sezanne is 60 miles, Camp de Mailly 80 miles, and Vitry-le-Francois roo miles, 
east of Paris. 



FIRST MARNE BATTLE 273 

the rest of the German armies by a gap only imperfectly filled 
by cavalry, executed its remarkable change of front. Bending 
abruptly southeastward, it crossed the line of the Ourcq (thus 
closing in on the rest of the German front), then turned south to 
cross the Marne. This flank march across the front of the French 
Sixth Army was made over the level plateau upland, north of the 
Dammartin line of heights (p. 236), which stretches from the 
Forest of Chantilly on the northwest as a straight though some- 
what broken wall 20 miles long southeastward to the Marne at 
Meaux. From this ridge, rising 200 to 300 feet above the adja- 
cent plateau, commanding observation is possible in all direc- 
tions, as the fertile surface of this part of Valois is most com- 
pletely cleared of forest cover. Elementary common sense would 
seem to dictate the seizure of this vitally important member of 
the northwest-southeast ridge system by the invaders. To do so 
would place the French left wing, Maunoury's Sixth Army, at a 
tremendous disadvantage, penning it up within the natural 
defensive wall while the flank march was carried out in security, 
or compelling it to fight a battle with the critical element of ob- 
servation in favor of the Germans before it could debouch from 
behind the obstacle. In any case the opportunity for Von Kluck 
to complete his delicate and dangerous maneuver unhindered 
would have been gained. At the very least, possession of the 
ridge by Von Kluck would have made a surprise attack on his 
exposed right flank impossible. He would have received earlier 
warning of the blow which soon involved the whole German front 
from Paris to Verdun in defeat. Von Kluck's great blunder was 
not in effecting his change of front toward the southeast. His 
own position with reference to the rest of the German armies, the 
direction of retreat of the main Allied forces, the impossibility 
of overcoming the defenses of Paris until defeat of the field 
armies of the enemy released more German troops for that large 
undertaking, and the necessity of bringing all possible strength 
to bear in the supreme task of compassing that defeat — all dic- 
tated the maneuver which the commander of the German First 
Army attempted. His guilt lay in contemptuously under- 



274 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

estimating the strength of his enemy and in calmly neglecting 
the most obvious military precautions. 3 

Instead of firmly seizing the Dammartin ridge as a protection 
for his flank, Von Kluck seems, if not to have ignored its exist- 
ence, at least to have left totally inadequate forces to occupy 
parts of it only. With the critical defense line thus weakly garri- 
soned, the German First Army marched blithely along in front 
of it, in fancied security. Seldom has a general's stupid neglect 
of the topographic advantages offered him by Nature been more 
swiftly punished. Joffre grasped quickly the opportunity pre- 
sented by the error of his adversary, stopped the retreat to the 
Seine, hurled Maunoury's army against Von Kluck's unpro- 
tected flank, and ordered the rest of the Allied front as far east- 
ward as Verdun to strike north and northwest in one great con- 
centric blow against the imperiled German line. The decisive 
Battle of the Marne was engaged. 

Maunoury's Sixth Army, debouching with little difficulty 
from behind the Dammartin wall on September 5 and 6, swung 
around toward the east under orders to seize and cross the line 
of the Ourcq, pivoting its right on the Marne barrier near Meaux. 
Near the pivot German rearguards were soon encountered about 
Monthyon;* but the French left wing had swept 25 miles across 
the plateau, and far beyond the Dammartin wall, before the sur- 
prised enemy could take effective counter measures. 4 Von Kluck 
acted promptly to correct his blunder as soon as he was apprised 
of its consequences. No doubt he saw at once the peculiar peril 
involved in the French drive at the line of the Ourcq. This valley, 
nearly 300 feet deep below the plateau in places, with the steep 
sides characteristic of stream trenches cut well into the massive 
limestone formation, its open floor exposed to artillery fire 
and traversed by both river and canal, is an obstacle of serious 

3 For a discussion of the possible consequences had Von Kluck seized the Dam- 
martin line of heights, cf. General Berthaut: De la Marne a la Mer du Nord, Paris, 
1910, pp. 34-38. For Von Kluck's explanation of the change of front, citations of 
orders, and defense of his conduct, including his account of measures taken by him 
to protect his right flank, cf. Alexander von Kluck: The March on Paris, 1914. Lon- 
don, 1920, especially p. 97- 

* Four miles northeast of Meaux. 4 Berthaut, p. 33. 



FIRST MARNE BATTLE 275 

magnitude. Undefended by important German forces, it could 
of course be passed with ease. But even wholly to prevent the 
French from crossing would avail nothing to the Germans. If 
Maunoury's army could reach this excellent defensive position 
and so firmly establish itself along the western bank that it could 
not be dislodged, a German retreat would become necessary. 
For the Ourcq trends northeast-southwest, making an acute 
angle with the Marne, just as the Oise trends northeast-south- 
west to make an acute angle with the Aisne (p. 139). And just as 
surely as De Castelnau's attack, a few days later, to press the 
Germans back on the Oise barrier would, if successful, have made 
that sharp salient untenable, so surely would Maunoury's reach- 
ing the Ourcq have cleared the Ourcq-Marne (or Ourcq-Morin) 
salient. In 1814 Bliicher could for a time think of maintaining 
himself in so precarious a position with the French on the river in 
his rear. But a century later the improved range and power of 
artillery and better methods of observation rendered such a 
thought impossible. Von Kluck's lines of communication, more- 
over, were cut by the prolongation of the oblique line of the Ourcq 
barrier almost to Soissons. There was no choice left the German 
general. He must, at all hazards, withdraw his forces from south 
of the Marne and hurl them against the French Sixth Army in a 
desperate effort to prevent it from reaching the line of the Ourcq. 
The battle which resulted is properly called the "Battle of the 
Ourcq," even though fought on the plateau west of that river 
trench. It was the battle for the Ourcq, a prize of the first im- 
portance. 

The task of Von Kluck was extremely difficult. To withdraw 
a great army across two, in some places three, river barriers with 
the speed necessary to throw them into batrie west of the critical 
line of the Ourcq, demanded not only quick decisions and able 
staff work but also the most skillful use of the topographic advan- 
tages offered by the terrain. Leaving rearguard forces to defend 
first the trench of the Grand Morin and, when that was forced, 
the trench of the Marne- Petit Morin, and finally the trench of the 
Marne alone, the commander of the German First Army soon 



276 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

had the bulk of his forces, with additions borrowed from other 
parts of the line, facing west against Maunoury, 3 to 12 miles west 
of the Ourcq. The transfer was not accomplished without diffi- 
culty, however. The French Eighth Division, established on the 
wooded spur which is surrounded by the big meander of the Marne 
east of Meaux and which dominates the crossings from Changis 
past Lizy-sur-Ourcq and Varreddes to Trilport,* harassed and de- 
layed all movements across the trench in that vicinity. 

Von Kluck's weakening of his own front south of the Grand 
Morin, as well as that of the German Second Army on his left, in 
order to meet effectively the threat to his right flank west of the 
Ourcq, opened the way to an advance by the British and French 
Fifth Armies. On September 6 they observed that the German 
advance had halted and was being followed by a retrograde move- 
ment, back to the Grand Morin. The British reached that barrier 
at Coulommiers by evening. On their right the Fifth Army met 
stiff resistance but seized the crossing of the Aubetin branch of 
the Grand Morin at Courtagon and strong positions at Chatillon 
and Esternay on the upper waters of the main river. In the dis- 
sected ridges and ravines of the edge of the escarpment above Se- 
zanne, where the deep notch of the former course of the Maurienne 
is cut through, the fighting was particularly severe, as the wooded 
crests afforded excellent natural protection for the invaders. 

Next day the British fought a battle for the crossings of the 
Grand Morin east and west of Coulommiers. The object of the 
Germans was to hold the British and French armies at bay as 
long as possible until the Battle of the Ourcq should be won; but 
for this purpose they could spare only the cavalry under Von 
Marwitz, as all infantry was needed to extricate Von Kluck's 
flank from its perilous situation. The parallel east-west trenches 
were therefore relied upon to strengthen the defense against an 
advance from the south. Three cavalry divisions were distrib- 
uted along the Grand Morin trench for a number of miles east and 
west of Coulommiers, to fight a delaying action against the 

* Unless otherwise stated, the places named throughout the rest of this chapter 
may readily be located on PI. Ill in the pocket, on or near the river or other topo- 
graphic feature with which the names are associated in the text. 



FIRST MARNE BATTLE 277 

British. The latter finally succeeded in forcing a passage, but 
only at the cost of serious casualties. Thereupon the German 
cavalry fell back to the line of the Petit Morin, and the -British 
seized control of the Grand Morin trench as far upstream as the 
vicinity of La Ferte-Gaucher. Meanwhile the Fifth Army had 
reached, and in some places forced passages over, the Grand 
Morin barrier between La Ferte-Gaucher and Esternay. Farther 
east the forests of the less fertile eastern Brie were beginning to 
make trouble, the right of the Fifth Army being held up by a 
strong defense of the Forest of Gault northeast of Esternay, 
which was only overcome by outflanking the obstacle. The nat- 
ural barriers of the plateau were standing the Germans in good 
stead. Against them the Allies, and particularly the British who 
were located at the critical point, seemed unable to press the Ger- 
mans northward with sufficient haste to disarrange Von Kluck's 
movements, or to prevent his main army from breaking contact 
with the enemy in his front and shifting its bulk, without serious 
confusion, to his imperiled right flank. Aided by the temporary 
protection of the valley trenches Von Kluck was escaping from 
the dangerous trap into which he had blundered. 

On September 8 the British pressed on to the line of the Petit 
Morin, a formidable trench cut nearly 500 feet deep in places, 
with steep sides frequently forested. The story of the struggle 
for this defensive barrier is well told in Major Whitton's account 
of the Marne campaign. 

On reaching that river it was soon realized that the German rearguard 
would not yield their line without a struggle, especially as the steep 
valley, covered with small but thick woods, distinctly favored the 
defense. On the British right two battalions of the 1st corps were sharply 
engaged about Sablonnieres and suffered a number of casualties before 
they succeeded in clearing the Germans out of the village in conjunction 
with the 1st Cavalry Brigade. A couple of miles to the west the left 
of the same corps met with considerable opposition, the 2nd Division 
being held up for some time at La Tretoire; but two Guards battalions 
of the division and some cavalry managed to get across the river higher 
up and turned the flank of the German rearguard, which was dislodged 
with considerable loss. . . . Lower down the river the 2nd corps 
was engaged between Orly and Jouarre, the 8th Brigade experiencing 



278 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

some trouble near the former' village; but after a horse artillery battery 
had bombarded the position for some time two infantry battalions 
rushed it, driving off the Germans and capturing several machine guns. 
On the left the 3rd corps . . attacked in the direction of La Ferte- 
sous-Jouarre, supported by some French guns, while the British howitzers 
shelled the bridges of that place across which Germans were streaming 
northward. The attack succeeded except for the fact that the Germans 
destroyed the bridges at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre and, by holding the 
town on the farther bank, prevented the British from crossing. By 
evening the British had made good the Petit Morin. 

Like the British Army, the French Fifth Army does not appear to 
have experienced any very considerable difficulty until the Petit Morin 
was in sight, but, that river once reached, the Germans showed that 
they were not prepared to abandon it without a struggle. On the left 
General Maud'huy's 18th corps forced the passage of the river near 
La Celle and, pushing on towards his objective at Fontenelle, gained 
some ground on the right. But the opposition was too severe to enable 
him to arrive farther than a line east and west, roughly, of Marchais-en- 
Brie. The French 3rd corps had a difficult task at Montmirail, for the 
heights on the right bank were thick with German troops, and the 
Germans brought many guns into action, so that the fighting lasted for 
more than eight hours. . . On the right of this French gain the 

1st corps had succeeded in reaching Vauchamps. ... As for the 
10th corps on the extreme right of the Fifth Army, it managed to reach, 
and apparently to cross, the Petit Morin north of Charleville. . . , 
The actual objectives assigned by the commander had not been reached 
by the Fifth Army, but . . . the capture of Montmirail and the river 
line east and west of it represented a good day's work. 5 

A whole day had been lost, however, in passing the obstacle, 
at a time when the complete success of Joffre's offensive required 
driving the Germans swiftly northward beyond the Marne. 

On the following day the difficult task of crossing the winding 
trench of the Marne was undertaken. At La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, 
the vital point of passage which figured so prominently in the 
Napoleonic campaign a century earlier, the bridges had been 
effectively destroyed, and the north bank of the valley was held 
by a German rearguard supplied with numerous machine guns. 
The British engineers found it impossible to throw a bridge over 
the obstacle under the galling fire from the northern bank, until 

5 F. E. Whitton: The Marne Campaign, London, 1917, PP- 186-188. 



FIRST MARNE BATTLE 279 

darkness came to protect them. Hence it was not until after 
nightfall that a crossing was effected. 6 Farther downstream a 
footing was secured on the northern side at Changis. The center 
crossed above La Ferte after overcoming the opposition of a 
rearguard supported by artillery handled with great skill and 
bravery. Farther east, between Charly-sur-Marne and Chateau- 
Thierry, the latter like La Ferte-sous-Jouarre a critical point in 
Napoleon's 1 8 14 maneuvers, the British right was held up at the 
barrier for some time by heavy machine-gun fire. As the bridge 
at Chateau-Thierry had been destroyed, the construction of a 
pontoon bridge under fire was necessary before the passage could 
be accomplished. The negotiation of the barrier would have 
been even more difficult but for the poor behavior of German 
troops at some of the crossings. At Charly-sur-Marne, for 
example, the bridge was left intact and the natural amphi- 
theater commanding it on the north undefended, because the 
forces assigned to this duty got hopelessly drunk. 7 The French 
Fifth Army crossed with the British in the Chateau-Thierry 
sector; but farther east, owing to the longer march required to 
reach the Marne barrier after crossing the Grand Morin, the 
passage was not effected until later. 

From the south bank of the Grand Morin east and west of 
Coulommiers, to the north bank of the Marne east and west 
of La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, is a distance of from 12 to 15 
miles. It took three full days to traverse this distance with 
nothing but limited rearguard forces to combat. Nothing, that 
is, except the obstacles interposed by Nature. To these must 
a large share of the delay be accredited. He who would measure 
the influence of the trenches of the Grand and Petit Morin and 
the Marne Rivers, must try to imagine the consequences had 
the German First Army been so vigorously pressed on a level 
plateau devoid of obstacles that it could not readily break contact 
with the enemy in its front, leaving Maunoury's Sixth Army, 
almost unopposed, to reach and cross the line of the Ourcq. 

6 Sir John French's Despatches, p. 31. 

7 Whitton, p. 203. 



280 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

With its communications cut, with a relentless foe holding it in 
front and a victorious host assailing it in the rear, Von Kluck's 
First Army could hardly have escaped overwhelming disaster. 
As it was, the story runs somewhat differently. 

While the successive river trenches were holding back the 
enemy on the south, permitting Von Kluck to break contact 
there with most of his troops and to shift them north of the 
Marne and west of the Ourcq, Maunoury's Sixth Army was 
finding its advance opposed by constantly increasing enemy 
forces, supported by artillery concealed in the ravines cut by 
minor branches of the west-to-east trenches tributary to the 
Ourcq. Batteries of heavy guns on the reverse slopes of the 
plateau spur at Trocy 7 miles northeast of Meaux, on the very ter- 
rain where Bliicher's vanguard, debouching from behind the 
Ourcq barrier, was overwhelmed by the French a century before, 
caused very heavy losses to the French under Maunoury. On all 
the broad surface of the plateau, and in the trenches which near 
the Ourcq cut it into parallel east-west strips, the fighting was ex- 
tremely severe. By the morning of the 8th the French front was 
approximately 5 or 6 miles west of the Ourcq. 

This day the effects of the Morin trenches in holding back the 
enemy at the south began to tell heavily against Maunoury. 
The growing pressure of German forces brought north to oppose 
him was forcing back his left flank. Reinforcements were hur- 
riedly sent out from Paris by railway and commandeered motor 
vehicles of every description; but meanwhile the outflanking 
of the French left, attempted in vain on the Ourcq battlefield 
a hundred years before, was succeeding under Von Kluck to an 
alarming extent. The northern end of the French line, unpro- 
tected by any natural obstacle on the exceptionally level upland 
west of the heads of the Ourcq tributaries, had by the 9th 
been bent back 8 or 9 miles and was facing northward. The 
situation was critical. But it was on the 9th that British and 
French forces at last crossed the Marne barrier and found them- 
selves in the rear of the German First Army west of the Ourcq. 
Von Kluck saw that his position, supportable so long as the Morin 



FIRST MARNE BATTLE 281 

and Marne trenches lay between him and his foes, was now abso- 
lutely untenable. That evening he ordered the retreat up the 
valley of the Ourcq toward the line of the Aisne. 

In the meantime a battle only second in importance to that 
of the Ourcq had been raging along the front of Foch's Ninth 
Army. Its retreat had brought it behind the St. Gond marshes, 
which "all felt was the last barrier providentially placed on the 
route of the invasion." 8 But Foch was carrying out the orders 
for a retreat to the Seine-Aube line, and nothing more serious 
than a rearguard action was contemplated along the marsh 
barrier. Even the plateau spur at Mondement, "the strategic key 
to the marshes," was but weakly held against a strong German 
attack. His army was still pushing southward when, on the 
morning of the 5th of September, Foch received Joffre's order of 
the night before. Immediately he faced back to the north and 
hastened to secure the protection of the marshes. At this time 
his left rested against the edge of the great escarpment just south 
of the deep notch or gateway cut by the Petit Morin River where 
it drains from the marshes into the plateau; while his right 
reached across the chalk plain to the entrenched Camp of Mailly. 

General Joffre had not failed to see the advantages offered by 
this historic natural barrier for assuring the safety of the armies 
resuming the offensive on the plateau against a flank attack, 
quite possible in case the Germans pushed southward over the 
level chalk plain below until they were in the rear of the plateau 
forces. His famous order of September 4 directed that "The Ninth 
Army will cover the right of the Fifth Army by holding the 
southern outlets of the St. Gond marshes and by placing a part 
of its forces on the tableland north of Sezanne." The tableland 
referred to is one of the projecting bastions of the plateau (p. 
253), and its northern wall dominates the marshes as well as the 
trench of the Petit Morin where it leaves them for its course 
through the upland (Fig. 62). Because the village and chateau of 
Mondement occupy a commanding position on the plateau spur, 
we may call it the Mondement bastion. On the following day, in 

8 Charles Le Goffic: Les Marais de Saint Gond, Paris, 1016, p. 23. 



282 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

preparation for the battle, Foch issued the detailed orders re- 
quired to execute the broad instructions of the generalissimo. The 
forces constituting his left wing were directed to cross the Petit 
Morin trench and push northwestward over the Marne plateau, 
thus keeping in touch with the proposed northward advance of 
the Fifth Army, operating just west of the Ninth. The center 
was to take up a defensive position along the southern edge of the 
marshes of St. Gond, maintaining strong advanced guards north 
of the marshes, where the Germans had failed to seize the hill at 
Toulon (p. 267) "a sort of great natural redan of which the high 
wooded scarp and lower glacis-like slopes" 9 commanded both 
marsh and plain. The right was likewise to take position behind 
the trench of the small Somme River, "an excellent line of de- 
fense," from the eastern end of the marshes to near the head of 
that little stream. Thus the Ninth Army utilized the whole 
upper portion of the combined Somme-Petit Morin valley trench, 
just as if there had been no geologically recent river capture 
separating it into two valleys. Indeed, we have already seen 
(p. 266) that the capture had made the barrier more formidable 
by converting part of it into the St. Gond marshes. However, 
between the point where the Somme bent abruptly northeast to 
its new course at Ecury-le-Repos and the point where the old 
valley began to get marshy at Morains, there was now a small 
unprotected gap in the natural barrier about 2 miles wide. 

On September 6 the Ninth Army found the enemy pressure 
too heavy to make the full execution of Foch's orders possible, 
although the broader objects outlined by Joffre were in general 
attained. Instead of advancing north of the Petit Morin 
trench, the left flank was actually pushed back to the south; 
but it held a strong position on the tableland. All the ad- 
vanced guards north of the marshes were driven back to the 
south side, after unsuccessfully attempting an attack against the 
plateau scarp at Congy, held by the invaders. Advanced French 
forces holding the butte of Toulon found themselves being 
crushed by artillery fire concentrated upon them by German 

9 Le Goffic, p. 33. 



FIRST MARNE BATTLE 283 

batteries along the rim of the escarpment to the northwest and 
were forced to retire. An attempt to recapture the important 
height, which Foch had ordered to be held a tout prix, was a 
failure. "The retreat through the marshes was terrible. For 
more than 3 kilometers extended the forest of reeds. It was 
impossible to use the road, where one would be immediately under 
accurately ranged artillery fire; and among the reeds one would 
sink in sometimes to the waist." 10 Part of the retiring forces 
entrenched themselves in strong positions near the quarries on 
Mont Aout. The enemy followed along the defiles through the 
marshes and repeatedly made desperate efforts to debouch. But 
"his wave will seek in vain to reach the slopes of Mont Aout, 
grand point of articulation, solitary like an island, which the 
52nd Reserve Division put in a state of defense and which domi- 
nates from its height of 221 meters the vast marshy expanse. 
To the end of the battle, except during a few hours on the after- 
noon of the 9th, Mont Aoilt will remain securely ours, and the 
IX Corps will find in it the most solid of supports." 11 The 
main body of the French IXth Corps "by holding the exits was 
able to maintain its position without difficulty." 12 At the 
gap in the barrier at Ecury-le-Repos, however, the enemy had 
pushed southward, an operation which would, if carried much 
farther, outflank both the Somme River and St. Gond marsh 
parts of the barrier on either side. A portion of the Somme 
valley for several miles above Ecury was already lost. 

Next day the Germans attacked the Ninth Army with a fury 
evidently born of the desire to help extricate the Imperial armies 
from the difficulties into which Von Kluck had plunged them. 
The center, "protected as it was by the formidable marshes to 
its front, was able to maintain its line without difficulty." 13 A 
large part of the German effort in this sector was now concen- 
trated against the plateau bastion of Mondement, projecting 
eastward some 5 or 6 miles between the western end of the 

10 Le Goffic, p. 70. 
» Ibid, p. 78. 

12 Whitton, p. 153. 

13 Ibid, p. 169. 



284 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

marshes on the north and Sezanne on the the south. So effec- 
tively did its heights command the marsh barrier and its passages, 
that General Humbert is reported to have said: "The Germans 
are bottled up. Mondement is the cork of the bottle. At any 
price it must hold." Nor is the whole value of the bastion 
measured on the north alone. From its projecting point the 
scarp retreats rapidly to the southwest, leaving the whole ex- 
panse of the chalk plain to the south and east exposed to view, 
with its roads, railways and villages spread out below like a 
giant map. On a clear day the towers of Troyes, on the opposite 
side of the plain, are visible. With such commanding heights in 
German control an extended retreat of the Allies under most 
painful conditions would become necessary. Small wonder, then, 
that German efforts were for several days centered on capturing 
the Mondement plateau. Little ground seems to have been lost 
here on the 7th, despite desperate German assaults, but on the 
extreme right the less formidable obstacle of the small Somme 
valley was already proving insufficient protection against the 
enemy's heavy attacks. 

On September 8 picked German troops, including the Guard 
Corps, again launched "repeated onslaughts conducted with 
the most reckless violence" in an effort to smash through the 
French center. The Somme position at the right was lost, and 
its defenders, pushed backward southwestward some 8 miles to 
the line of the upper Superbe (the Maurienne), were now en- 
deavoring to re-form under the protection of that obstacle. This 
retreat exposed the flank and rear of the troops defending the 
St. Gond marsh barrier. Some of these forces had to fall back 
southward and face east against the new danger. Taking advan- 
tage of the confused situation the Germans began to filter through 
the marshes under protection of heavy artillery fire and to hasten 
the French withdrawal from the southern margin of the barrier, 
a withdrawal made inevitable by the outflanking movement 
farther east. On the plateau at the extreme left the French line 
held firm and even gained ground ; but all along thewestern border 
of the marshes it was being pushed back against the steep north- 



FIRST MARNE BATTLE 285 

eastern wall of the Mondement bastion, and the bastion itself 
was with difficulty resisting extremely heavy attacks. Believing, 
however, that the formidable positions on the bastion could be 
held, with the aid of the Fifth Army's right wing, by a part only 
of the forces stationed there, Foch now withdrew a division from 
his left and placed it in a convenient position to support his right 
as needed. The latter, reorganized, had debouched from behind 
the Maurienne and was gaining ground in an attack north- 
ward toward its former position on the Somme. 

The following day was heavy with fate. The Germans, leav- 
ing holding forces at the northern exits of the St. Gond marshes, 
issued in great numbers, the Guards included, past the eastern 
end of the barrier and pushed southward beyond Fere Cham- 
penoise in a desperate endeavor to complete their success against 
the Ninth Army by a break-through. Assailed by the concen- 
trated weight of three German corps, Foch's right fell back to 
the line of the Maurienne, then 3 or 4 miles farther back, 
to the vicinity of Salon. The marshes were effectively out- 
flanked and the center was compelled to fall farther back, com- 
pletely uncovering the southern exits. Mont Aout was aban- 
doned to the enemy, and the wall of the bastion at the chateau 
of Mondement was scaled by hostile troops. It was one of the 
most critical moments of the battle. But Foch's "calculated 
tenacity" was equal to the emergency. "The situation is excel- 
lent. Attack!" continued to be his order of the day. Flinging 
his reserve division into the breach on the afternoon of the 9th 
and directing an advance along the whole line, he had measurably 
relieved the situation before nightfall. Mondement was retaken, 
and the left improved its hold on the difficult terrain of the plateau 
by a further northward advance, made possible through the 
excellent progress of the Fifth Army's right wing. Plans were 
perfected for launching Foch's left eastward, north of the marsh- 
es, on the morrow to attack the Germans in the rear. 

That same day, however, the issue of the Battle of the Marne 
had already been decided on the plateau to the west, and as night 
came on orders for the great German retreat were given. When 



286 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

the morning of the ioth dawned, Foch found in front of him only 
German rearguards and quickly advanced to his old position 
along the Somme valley-St. Gond marsh barrier. By night his 
right had pushed on to the northeast and stood on the line of the 
Soude, facing toward Chalons. This rapid advance over the level 
plain of the Champagne, while on the east the German rearguards 
were dislodged but slowly from the difficult terrain of the dis- 
sected chalk scarp about the Vitry gateway and on the west 
■equally slowly from the difficult plateau terrain with its forests 
and lakes, formed a wedge projecting into the German center 
which at first led many, among them the present author, to 
attribute the German retreat to Foch's offensive. The French 
official communique of September 10, reviewing the battle, lent 
color to this erroneous view. On the basis of the fuller informa- 
tion later available, supplemented by personal statements of some 
of those directing the operations, it can safely be said that the 
German retreat had been rendered inevitable, and was indeed 
under way, some hours before Foch's wedge was formed. To 
acknowledge this is to detract nothing from the "beautiful 
maneuvers" 14 which must themselves in time have brought about 
the retreat of the enemy. 

There seems to be little support for the legend that the Prus- 
sian Guard was overwhelmed in its retreat through the St. Gond 
marshes, becoming mired and losing thousands of its numbers in 
the morass. On the contrary, the retreat of the night of Sep- 
tember 9 was orderly and conducted secretly under cover of dark- 
ness. According to Louis Madelin, "no one stuck in the marshes, 
for during those months no one could really stick there. After 
the hot summer and in spite of light rains, they were merely a 
sort of basin in which reeds and grasses grew out of the gray, 
cracked earth." 15 Others state that after rains during the 
battle "the clay pocket of St. Gond became a quagmire" and 

14 Joseph Mangin: Comment finit la guerre, Rev. des Deux Monies, Vol. 56, 
1920, pp. 481-520, 721-762; Vol. 57. 1920, pp. 241-285, 481-537. 774~ 8l 5; Vol. 
58, 1920, pp. 74-101; reference in Vol. 56, p. 511. 

16 Louis Madelin: La victoire de la Marne, Rev. des Deux Monies, Vol. 35, 1916, 
pp. 241-287; reference on p. 268. 



FIRST MARNE BATTLE 287 

describe a fearful slaughter of the picked German troops while 
"gunners up to their knees" and "gun carriages up to the axles" 
struggled in mud and water. The truth seems to lie between the 
two extreme opinions. The writer has seen the St. Gond marshes 
late in July when they showed broad expanses of reeds rising out 
of water instead of dry, cracked clay. Charles Le Goffic, whose 
special study of this sector of the battle front is entitled to cre- 
dence, describes the three roads which were "the best, the most 
solid, and alone capable of bearing heavy artillery" across the 
"quaking meadows," states specifically that some arabas, light 
Moroccan carts, "became mired in crossing the marshes," 
and quotes a participant in the French retirement through the 
marshes on the first day of the battle who tells of "men sinking 
sometimes up to the waist." 16 Accounts written by soldiers 
engaged on the borders of the marshes refer repeatedly on dif- 
ferent days to "pouring rain," "a light thundershower which 
cleared the air," "the rain began falling again, a good downpour 
which wet the men to the skin," "the following morning a fine 
rain which ceased about ten o'clock." Apparently the marshes, 
partially drained and much less of an obstruction in summer than 
in winter, were nevertheless, especially when showers filled the 
depressions along the causeways and the drainage ditches with 
water and made the clay sticky and slippery, enough of a barrier 
to render progress off the roads difficult and hence to give a solid 
meaning to Joffre's order, to hold "the southern outlets {de- 
bouches) of the marshes of St. Gond," an order which would have 
no real significance if the whole region was in the summer months 
always a dry clay plain which could be crossed anywhere. On 
the other hand, the great bogs which made the marshes an 
object of fear in earlier days, and engulfed the remnants of 
Pachod's troops when they sought refuge among the reeds from 
the pursuing Allies a century before, no longer existed in 19 14. 
That some Germans, and Frenchmen as well, may have found 
the remaining undrained areas and the rain-soaked clay a trap, 
is quite possible. But no masses of the Guard were swallowed 

16 Le Goffic, pp. 36, 52, 67, 69. 



288 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

alive, no reapers cut with their blades "corpses projecting half- 
way out of the mud." 17 

The chief r61e of the St. Gond marshes in the Battle of the 
Marne was to serve as a barrier behind which Joffre could expect 
the center of his great battle front to hold firm while the flanking 
blows were achieving their purpose. That center driven in or 
broken would mean the failure of his offensive operation, might 
mean irreparable disaster. But the center standing unshaken, an 
impassable barrier to the enemy, was all that was needed to 
make victory sure. The marshes contributed greatly to this end, 
and the fact that they were ultimately outflanked by an advance 
elsewhere does not lessen the significance of their role as a barrier 
during the first days of the fighting, or their value in the subse- 
quent maneuvers. Even when the southern outlets fell into their 
hands, the Germans were seriously embarrassed in supporting an 
offensive across an obstacle pierced by few practicable roads, all 
under accurate Allied fire. 

The plateau bastion of Mondement was, however, the strong 
point which saved the situation at the Allied center when the 
marsh barrier was lost. When Foch's right was overwhelmed 
and his center threatened, his left rested unshaken on the massive 
buttress of the plateau spur. It was the natural strength of that 
position which,, in full battle, enabled him to withdraw a portion 
of its defenders and throw them into line farther east where the 
danger was greater. It was from the plateau that Foch deter- 
mined to launch on September 10 the flank attack against the 
German communications north of the marshes. The only part 
of the Ninth Army front which did not lose considerable ground 
was the part posted on the Mondement bastion. In the words 
of the French official communique of September 10: "By a suc- 
cession of violent attacks the Germans tried to break our center, 
but in vain; our success on the high ground north of Sezanne has 
enabled us in turn to pass to the offensive." 

During these critical days the French Third and Fourth Armies 
at the eastern end of the far-flung battle front found great dif- 

17 Florian Parraentier: Visions de guerre. 



BATTLE OF THE AISNE 289 

ficulty not merely in making progress but even in holding their 
own. The Fourth Army, standing behind the marshy barrier of 
the Saulx-Ornain valley and resting its right on the hill country 
of the dissected chalk scarp, successfully resisted violent attempts 
to pierce its front. A break-through at this point would isolate 
Verdun, and was especiallydangerous because an effort to achieve 
the same result was being made simultaneously from the eastern 
side of the sharp Verdun salient (p. 385). This latter attempt 
kept Sarrail's Third Army in a measure immobilized, for the 
threat in its rear was decidedly serious. For several days the 
Fourth Army beat off terrific enemy attacks, sometimes giving 
ground, sometimes gaining a little; while the Third Army, less 
actively engaged, changed front but little. On the 10th the left 
of the Fourth Army advanced slightly, pressing the Germans, 
who were now becoming involved in the general retreat. It is 
interesting to note that the German Third Army in retiring, at 
first did so only on its right wing, its left being solidly buttressed 
in the rough hill country of the dissected chalk scarp near Vitry- 
le-Francois. This natural stronghold resisted the efforts directed 
against it by De Langle de Cary's Fourth Army and materially 
handicapped the French advance. But on the nth and 12th the 
German armies were in full retreat, jeopardized by the defeat 
of Von Kluck far to the west. One strong position after another 
was surrendered without a battle, and only in front of Sarrail's 
army did the Germans await serious attacks before yielding. 

The Battle of the Aisne 
When compelled to retreat from the banks of the Ourcq and 
the marshes of St. Gond, the German high command sought some 
natural topographic barrier which would aid in checking theAllied 
pursuit and behind which their badly shaken military machine 
could be reorganized. The Marne itself above Chateau-Thierry, 
prolonged northwestward past Bouresches and Belleau Woods 
by the east-west trenches of the Clignon and Grivelle branches of 
the Ourcq, was unavailable because it was too close behind the 
defeated armies. There would be no opportunity to redistribute 



290 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

forces while retiring so as to strengthen the weak sector of the 
line held only by Von Marwitz's cavalry, which, as we have seen, 
was unable to keep the Allies from crossing the formidable 
barriers of the two Morins and the Marne below Chateau- 
Thierry. On its right wing this position would be poorly defended 
against flank attacks, and neither branch of the Ourcq was as 
formidable an obstacle as the situation demanded. Besides this, 
the barrier in question was already being broken at its weakest 
point, between the Marne and the upper branches of the Clignon, 
by the advance of the British and French near Chateau-Thierry 
and Bouresches. 

Still farther back was the truly formidable line of the Villers- 
Cotterets ridge, prolonged westward to the Oise by the east-west 
trench of the Authonne with its higher northern wall backed by 
the vast Forest of Compiegne, which offered admirable conceal- 
ment for the defending forces, their artillery and supplies, and 
their movements; and prolonged eastward by' the bastion of 
Rheims Mountain with its forest cover. But this line required 
time for its proper organization. The western half of Villers- 
Cotterets ridge is wooded, and in front of a large section of it 
stretches the great Villers-Cotterets forest, offering concealment 
for an enemy maneuvering to storm the ridge. "To have a great 
forest mass in front of one is one of the worst conditions for a 
battle line, because under the shelter of the mass one never knows 
what is happening. A forest is a bandage over the eyes." 18 Not 
until after openings had been cut in the woods on the heights to 
give good observation over the plain, and a zone had been cleared 
between the forest on the plain and the ridge, would the line be 
free from a serious threat to its center. From the eastern end of 
the ridge to the Rheims bastion there was a gap of some miles to 
be blocked by artificial works alone. Needless to say, the time 
for performing such labors had not been available. 

Behind the Villers-Cotterets ridge lay the great natural moat 
of the Aisne, 2 miles wide and 350 to 425 feet deep, dominated on 
the north by the strong wall of the Chemin des Dames plateau 

18 General Berthaut, De la Marne a la Mer du Nord. p. 55. 



BATTLE OF THE AISNE 291 

strip (Fig. 64) with its steep upper scarp so difficult to scale, its 
exposed lower slopes swept by fire from the crest, and its num- 
berless quarries and caverns providing ready-made shelter for 
artillery and supplies and for whole armies of men. On the west 
it was protected by large forests, the trench of the Oise, and the 
outlying natural fortresses of the Noyon-Lassigny massifs. To 
the east it could be continued by the Vesle-Ardre trench and the 
Rheims Mountain bastion; or if this last formidable massif was 
too close to the scene of defeat to permit its orderly occupation 
and organization, then by the outlying heights of Brimont, 
Berru, and Moronvilliers, with advanced defenses along the 
Ardre and Vesle trenches and the Rheims Mountain and St. 
Thierry bastions (Fig. 62). The River Aisne, flowing through the 
flat, open bottom of its east- west trench, is from 150 to 200 feet 
wide and some 10 or 15 feet deep, and hence can be crossed only 
where bridged. All bridges could be brought under the direct fire 
of artillery concealed on wooded portions of the valley slopes and 
plateau spurs or in the ravines cut back into the crest (p. 231). 
Movements on the open plateau surface were largely screened 
from direct observation, thanks to the top of the tree fringe left 
growing on the steep upper slopes. The heights of Brimont, 
Berru, and Moronvilliers dominate every avenue of approach 
across the low plain of Champagne. Here was one of the most 
formidable defensive positions in France, 85 miles long from the 
Oise valley to the eastern spur of Moronvilliers, and far enough 
in the rear of the Ourcq and St. Gond battlefields to serve the 
needs of the German high command. 

By the afternoon of September 12 the French Sixth Army and 
the British army were encountering such determined resistance 
that the British Commander-in-Chief "formed the opinion that 
the enemy had, for the moment at any rate, arrested his retreat 
and was preparing to dispute the passage of the Aisne with some 
vigor." 19 General Joffre had already foreseen that the Germans 
would make a stand on the line of the Aisne and that this "im- 
mense fortress prepared by Nature" would prove too strong to be 

19 Sir John French's Despatches, p. 37. 



292 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

taken by frontal attack. On September n he wrote to Mau- 
noury: "It must be expected that, the enemy facing about on the 
Aisne, it will be very difficult for you to attack from in front, and 
it seems necessary for you to have as large forces as possible 
ascending the right bank of the Oise in order to outflank the 
enemy's right wing." 20 

Without delay the British army was ordered to assault the 
barrier from Soissons eastward and secure the river crossings. 
Fortunately some of the bridges were not completely demolished. 
At Pont Arcy troops crossed in single file on a girder not complete- 
ly submerged, at Vailly on a single plank connecting the ruins of 
the former bridge. A little farther east a passage was effected by 
the aqueduct carrying the Oise-Aisne Canal over the river, which 
was poorly defended by the Germans. The bridge at Conde was 
left intact but was so dominated by the heights above that it was 
more of a trap than a passage and remained in the control of the 
enemy till the end of the battle. Bridges at Venizel, Missy, and 
Vailly were not damaged beyond repair. Elsewhere men were 
rafted or ferried over in boats. Pontoon bridges were thrown 
across at eight points, and the construction of more substantial 
structures was begun by the Royal Engineers. All of this work 
was carried on under heavy artillery fire and at a serious cost in 
casualties. Approaches to the crossings were swept by enemy 
guns, bridges were damaged and operations interrupted, and 
the completion of pontoons at some points was rendered im- 
possible. British troops established on the north bank, with a 
powerful enemy strongly entrenched in front and a dangerous 
obstacle imperfectly bridged at their backs, were in a hazardous 
situation. 

The assault on the plateau scarp was immediately pressed by 
the troops which had negotiated the barrier, in the hope of win- 
ning the crest and pushing the enemy farther back from the vital 
crossings. It was difficult to lend the infantry proper artillery 
support in this operation, both because of the steepness of the 
slopes and because of the absence of concealed gun positions on 

20 Victor Giraud: Histoire de la Grande Guerre, Paris, 1919. P- 178. 



BATTLE OF THE AISNE 293 

the exposed valley floor. Enemy artillery, on the other hand, 
enjoyed the advantages of excellent positions and dominating 
observation. These advantages soon began to tell. The attack, 
although continued with heroic determination against appalling 
odds, was a failure. The British pushed up the ravines toward 
the plateau top and attempted to seize the southward projecting 
spurs which formed successive barriers against a westward 
advance parallel with the crest. But they were halted on an 
oblique front across the southern face of the plateau, their right 
clinging to a precarious position on the margin of the upland 
west of Craonne, their left down in the valley from east of Vailly 
to Soissons. 

Of all the plateau spurs the one terminating near Chivres and 
Missy projects farthest south, forming a strong bastion from 
which long stretches of the valley to the east and west may be 
brought under enfilading fire. It was this spur which effectively 
dominated, the Conde bridge at its base and made the passage 
of the river farther east so difficult. To relieve this situation an 
attempt was made to capture the Chivres bastion, "as a neces- 
sary preliminary to a further advance northward ;" but the posi- 
tion was too strongly defended. Forces which scaled the southern 
point of the bastion were compelled to fall back into the valley 
floor. Sir John French later discussed with his commanding 
officers the possibility of seizing the Conde bridge but abandoned 
the project because the operation, conducted under fire from the 
bastion, would prove more costly than the general situation 
warranted. Cavalry which had crossed the river for a hoped-for 
pursuit of the enemy had to return single file over a narrow bridge 
near Vailly under heavy fire from the heights. 

But, while the British were unable to press forward and capture 
the plateau, the Germans found the task of dislodging them 
equally beyond their strength. The north-south ridges and 
ravines, once seized by a foe, afforded good defensive positions. 
Hence the Battle of the Aisne developed into a series of heavy 
attacks and counterattacks lasting until September 28 without 
much change in the battle front. The little British army alone 



294 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

had sacrificed more than 13,500 men in a vain effort to breach the 
Aisne barrier. 

At the right of the British the end of the Chemin des Dames 
plateau had been seized by the French after a bitter struggle in 
which Craonne changed hands several times. Napoleon had 
considered the position an extremely difficult one to carry by 
assault, and the French of a century later could amply confirm 
his judgment. A part of the Fifth Army advanced over the 
chalk plain east of the plateau as far as Corbeny at the head of 
the Ailette valley, threatening to penetrate the valley and take 
the Chemin des Dames plateau in the rear while the British 
attacked it in front and thus to repeat Napoleon's maneuver on 
the same terrain. But after a fierce struggle the French were 
forced back from both Corbeny and Craonne. 

Meanwhile, Maunoury's Sixth Army was delivering frontal 
attacks along the Aisne barrier west of Soissons, but seeking more 
particularly to outflank the whole mass of the formidable obstacle 
by an advance up the valley of the Oise. At Carlepont, 5 miles 
south of Noyon, the northward drive of the French seemed in the 
way of success; but the natural protection the enemy enjoyed on 
this flank was too strong to be overcome. The Forests of Laigue, 
Carlepont, and others, the wooded heights of the Lassigny- 
Noyon massif, and the wooded western spurs of the Soissonnais 
plateau made a complex of obstacles through which the French 
could not push their way indefinitely. German advanced lines of 
defense, profiting by these advantages even where no attempt was 
made to hold them permanently, broke the force of the French 
blow. The western spur ends of the plateau strip were ascended, 
but Maunoury had shot his bolt. Fierce local struggles, about 
Tracy-le-Mont near the northern crest of the westernmost spur 
and Tracy-le-Val in the valley below, marked the end of the 
abortive attempt at outflanking the Aisne barrier. The Germans 
could not in any case hold the narrow salient lying within the 
acute angle formed by the Aisne and Oise. Their line must cross 
the plateau obliquely, from the Aisne above the confluence to the 
Oise. Such a line was established when the French were brought 



BATTLE OF THE AISNE 295 

to bay along the cross ridges of the plateau between Attichy* and 
Tracy-le-Val. 

Maunoury's frontal attacks against the southern scarp of the 
plateau west of Soissons at first gave promise of an important 
success. Crossings of the river were effected under great dif- 
ficulties at Vic-sur-Aisne and Fontenoy with the aid of pontoon 
bridges. North of Vic a valley, unusually large for this plateau 
strip, heads northward and eastward into the upland (Fig. 62). 
Along this trench the French pushed boldly forward, hoping to 
outflank the defenders on the heights above; but the position of 
the enemy was too strong, and the French fell back to the main 
river. Assaults on the plateau at other points were ultimately 
beaten off, and efforts to build a pontoon bridge at Soissons were 
thwarted by enemy artillery fire accurately directed from the 
higher ground. The natural fortress of the plateau wall and 
Aisne trench had saved the German armies from a retreat into 
the low plain north of the Marne plateau, and assured a long and 
bitter war in place of a speedy expulsion of the invaders. 

In the Champagne plain, where the Germans had fallen back 
on the northeastern heights of the Rheims Basin — the buttes of 
Brimont, Berru, and Moronvilliers — all attempts of the French to 
dislodge the enemy from his strong position failed. Brimont, vio- 
lently contested, changed hands several times, finally remaining 
to the Germans. Berru was solidly German, and the enemy's line 
lay well in front of the supporting mass of Moronvilliers. East- 
ward the line traversed the open chalk plain north of the Camp of 
Chalons to cross the Monts de Champagne of the dissected chalk 
scarp about seven miles north of the battlefield of Valmy.* 

For some months the operations on the Aisne and Champagne 
fronts were restricted to minor projects designed to effect local im- 
provements in the battle front. The British sector was taken 
over by the French in October. About the middle of January, 
1915, the French launched an attack against the plateau north 
of Soissons with the object of pushing the enemy from his obser- 
vation posts on the crest and thus disengaging the town from the 

* Attichy is 12 miles W of Soissons, Valmy 20 miles NE of Chalons. 



296 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

accurate bombardment to which it had long been subjected. 
Crouy, at the entrance to one of the north-south ravines two miles 
northeast of Soissons and at the base of one of the plateau spurs 
dominating the town, was captured, and the limited offensive 
gave promise of success, when a sudden flood in the Aisne swept 
away the bridges at Missy and Venizel upon which the attackers 
largely depended for their connection with the south bank of the 
river. The situation was decidedly serious, as Von Kluck was 
rapidly bringing up reinforcements. The bridges were re-estab- 
lished but again destroyed by the flood. Isolated on the northern 
bank of the river, with a powerful enemy launching attacks from 
an impregnable natural stronghold in front, and an angry flood 
sweeping away the only means of securing support from the rear, 
the French found themselves in an intolerable position. There 
was no choice but to retreat under the most painful and dangerous 
conditions. Deluged by a storm of projectiles the French fell back 
to the south side of the river with heavy losses, leaving only suffi- 
cient forces on the north bank to maintain a small bridgehead at 
Soissons. 

A local operation of some importance was directed early in the 
following June against the western flank of the plateau position. 
Both Tracy-le-Mont and Tracy-le-Val, as well as part of the wood 
on the spur just east of them, had been seized in minor attacks, 
when an advance eastward across the north-south ridges and 
ravines defending the German flank was attempted. The sud- 
denness of the onslaught took the enemy by surprise, and two of 
his lines of defense were captured before he began to react with 
vigor. Then progress across the grain of the country was quickly 
halted. A succession of strong positions on the cross ridges was 
always available to the enemy, and his flank was practically 
impregnable against local attacks. 

The First Battle of the Champagne 
Turning to the extension of the Aisne position across the chalk 
plain of the Champagne, we should note that in December, 1914, 
the French had launched a series of attacks on this front, selecting 



FIRST CHAMPAGNE BATTLE 297 

for their operations the only sector which promised any proba 
bility of success. Between the Moronvilliers massif on the west 
and the Monts de Champagne formed by the dissected crest of 
the chalk escarpment on the east, there is a stretch of some 15 
miles of gently sloping chalk plain on which topographic in- 
equalities of any magnitude are lacking. Farther west the line 
of buttes bars the way toward the north, while eastward the 
Monts de Champagne are soon succeeded by the formidable 
terrain of the Argonne. As Somme-Py* is one of the most im- 
portant points in the 15-mile gap between regions of more dif- 
ficult country, we may for convenience call this the Somme-Py 
gateway. An advance through it and into the northern Cham- 
pagne beyond would outflank the Brimont-Berru-Moronvilliers 
barrier, threaten the important gateway of Rethel.and, if pushed 
far enough, turn the enemy's formidable Aisne position. We 
must be prepared, therefore, to see repeated attempts against 
this significant sector of the German front. 

The first efforts by De Langle de Cary's Fourth Army gained a 
few kilometers of ground in the neighborhood of Hurlus. Realiz- 
ing the danger of an advance at this point, the Germans reacted 
vigorously, delivering more than twenty counterattacks at a 
heavy cost in casualties. The Allies had not yet learned how to 
deal effectively with successive trench systems, and small ad- 
vances over the exposed plain were dearly purchased. 

About the middle of February, 191 5, the French began a series 
of violent attacks in this same gateway which lasted for five or 
six weeks and which may be known as the first great Battle of the 
Champagne. The front of operations was 8 miles long, from 
Souain to Beausejour northeast of Hurlus, and one of the objec- 
tives was to aid the Russians by preventing' the transport of 
troops to the eastern front. Whatever hopes of a possible break- 
through may have been entertained were destined to disappoint- 
ment. Slight advances could be effected at the cost of proper 
artillery preparation, which wrought havoc with the enemy 
trenches and caused the defenders heavy losses. Ten thousand 

* The points involved in this battle lie from 17 to 22 miles NNE of Chalons. 



298 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

German corpses are said to have been found on the field of 
battle. 21 But the German army still blocked the gateway. 

The Second Battle of the Champagne 
When in September, 191 5, two simultaneous offensives were 
launched against the great Noyon salient, one in Artois (the 
Second Battle of Vimy Ridge) and one in Champagne, it was 
again the Somme-Py gateway which was selected for attack. 
This time not only the whole of the gateway, from Auberive 
in the Suippe valley at the southeastern base of the Moronvilliers 
massif to Massiges at the base of the Monts de Champagne, was 
included in the field of operations, but also a portion of the Wet 
Champagne about Ville-sur-Tourbe, east of the chalk scarp. 
The undertaking was planned by General de Castelnau, and the 
troops were exhorted "not only to take the first enemy trenches, 
but to push on without pause, day and night, past the positions 
of the first and second lines, into the open country beyond." 22 
A three days' bombardment prepared the way. 

The assault was terrific. In a few hours the French had 
smashed through the first system of defenses, on the whole front 
of 20 miles, to a depth of more than 2 miles in places. But 
just as on the plains of the north, so on those of the Champagne, 
the Allies were to learn that a long bombardment gives the enemy 
time to mass his reserves for the shock, without destroying his 
rear defenses; and that a continued advance across an exposed 
plain under these conditions is practically impossible. Heavy 
rain softened the ground at the critical moment and, while prov- 
ing less of an obstacle than on the loam-covered chalk of the 
Somme region, retarded the bringing up of reinforcements and 
the advance of the artillery to new positions. The offensive 
ended almost as suddenly as it had begun. The Somme-Py 
gateway was still in enemy hands. 

The Hindenburg Retreat 
The extensive enemy retirement on the western front made 
necessary by the 1916 Battle of the Somme (p. 158), and which 

21 Giraud, Histoire de la Grande Guerre, p. 285. 

22 Ibid, p. 311. 



FIRST CHEMIN DES DAMES BATTLE 299 

took place early in the spring of 191 7, involved a readjustment of 
the German front across the northern end of the Marne plateau. 
The enemy had decided to retire from the Lassigny-Noyon massif 
and to pivot his new line on the St. Gobain massif. This auto- 
matically freed all those portions of the Aisne valley and plateau 
strip west of the Soissons region. The new front, after crossing 
the western margin of the St. Gobain tableland, reached the 
Chemin des Dames plateau strip north of Soissons and traversed 
it obliquely toward the southeast to reach the Aisne valley near 
the apex of the strong Chivres bastion, 5 or 6 miles east of 
Soissons. The important crossings of the Aisne trench at Sois- 
sons and all of the western half of the trench were now securely in 
Allied control. Ultimate conquest of the great natural fortress 
appeared more feasible than ever before. On the east the French 
still clung to the positions gained by the British on the margin of 
the Chemin des Dames upland west of Craonne; their new front 
on the upland northeast of Soissons threatened the flank of the 
defenders; and only for the 10 miles east of Missy were the 
attackers still held in the bottom of the Aisne trench. 

The First Battle of the Chemin des Dames 
The Allied plan of campaign in the spring of 1917 had as one of 
its chief objects the breaking of the new German front across the 
plain of the Somme by capture of the two great buttresses upon 
which that front was anchored. On the north the Third Battle of 
Vimy Ridge was to deprive the enemy of one of the buttresses (p. 
162). On the south the St. Gobain buttress was too strong to take 
by direct assault, so it was decided to try, simultaneously with the 
attack on the Vimy buttress, an outflanking operation on a large 
scale which would, if successful, compel the evacuation of the 
St. Gobain region. For this purpose an offensive against the 
remaining portion of the Chemin des Dames stronghold and 
against the line of buttes supporting the Champagne front was 
undertaken by Joffre's successor, Nivelle, apparently with inade- 
quate appreciation of the immense natural strength of the 
obstacles to be attacked. 



3 oo BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

After a ten days' heavy bombardment of the plateau defenses, 
the Sixth Army under Mangin and the Fifth under Mazel on 
April 16 assaulted from in front the escarpment dominating the 
Aisne valley. Poor weather conditions, by preventing proper 
aerial observation on the part of the French, enormously in- 
creased the advantages of direct observation enjoyed by the 
Germans from the heights above. Under a terrific fire the mag- 
nificent armies of France were hurled up the slopes, against some 
of the most formidable positions which ever defied armed force. 
Across the lower declivities, swept by enemy machine guns, up 
the steep cornice above, through fortified orchards and woods, 
over quarries and caverns innumerable, the assaulting wave rose 
higher and higher, faltered, neared the crest, but broke at last 
against the grim masonry of Nature. For three weeks the 
struggle was continued, degenerating into local combats for im- 
provement of particular points in the line. The Chivres bastion 
was largely cleared of the enemy. From Craonne to Cerny the 
narrow upland was at last French; but from Cerny on west to 
Laffaux (northeast of Soissons) the disheartened Frenchmen 
clung desperately to the margin of the plateau, their backs to the 
brink of the deep Aisne trench, their great offensive stopped dead 
despite a terrible sacrifice in human lives. That the Germans had 
suffered heavily was poor consolation for those whose hopes of 
a decisive and overwhelming victory had run high. A crisis in 
the military affairs of France supervened, and the morale of the 
French army was for the moment shaken to its foundations. The 
strength of the Aisne defenses was indirectly threatening the very 
life of the great Republic. 

The Third Battle of the Champagne 
Two attempts at the Somme-Py gateway having failed to gain 
important results, it was now determined, in conjunction with 
the attack on the Chemin des Dames, to assault the chief but- 
tresses of the Champagne front. If Brimont butte and the 
Moronvilliers massif could be seized and securely held, a con- 
verging fire could be directed on Mont Berru, between the two, 



THIRD CHAMPAGNE BATTLE 301 

and its capture rendered comparatively simple. The operations 
against Brimont were undertaken in connection with the assault 
on the Chemin des Dames, the Fifth Army attacking from the 
western partof the plateau, past the Berry-au-Bac crossing of the 
Aisne, to the Rheims sector. Its objective was not only the cap- 
ture of the butte of Brimont but also the conquest of two smaller 
hills near Berry-au-Bac which blocked the line of advance into 
the plain behind the Moron villiers massif. The smaller hills were 
seized after a fierce struggle, but the important height of Bri- 
mont, although closely threatened and even reported captured in 
some accounts, 23 resisted every effort to take it. 

The assault against the all-important Moronvilliers massif 
was delivered along a 10-mile front on April 17, the day fol- 
lowing the initiation of the Chemin des Dames attack. The dark 
forest patches cloaking the slopes had been mowed down by pro- 
longed bombardment, and the fresh chalk, plowed up by the 
shells, gave to the stripped surfaces the appearance of snow-clad 
hills (Fig. 75). Sweeping up the slopes with irresistible elan the 
French Fourth Army reached the crest of the heights. The 
advance, swift as it was, was not accomplished without heavy 
losses. Enjoying the incalculable advantage of direct observa- 
tion from the heights, the Germans were able to direct an accur- 
ate artillery fire upon the attacking columns. Tunnels through 
the chalk hills connected advanced positions with the rear, 
enabling the defenders to fight viciously to the last moment and 
then to withdraw underground to the more protected northern 
slopes. As in the chalk and limestone formations of other 
regions, however, the numerous tunnels, subways, deep dugouts 
and caverns were, with the increasing power of heavy artillery 
and the greater swiftness of enemy advances following the de- 
struction of defensive trench systems, becoming fatal man traps. 
It is reported that some of the tunnels through the Moronvilliers 
massif were so blocked by debris from the bombardment that 
hundreds of Germans in them were suffocated, 24 while many more 

23 Giraud, p. 500. 

24 W.M.Davis: A Handbook of Northern France, Cambridge, Mass., 191 8, p. 107. 



3 02 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

were captured in the labyrinth of excavations in the chalk. But 
the difficulty of the task exhausted the force of the drive. When 
the enemy's positions on the reverse slopes were encountered, the 
weakened powers of the .offensive were inadequate to the task of 
overcoming defenses which had not been destroyed by the bom- 
bardment because not visible. Again the natural obstacle had 
blocked the path to victory. 

It might appear that possession of a dominating crest would 
alone be sufficient to assure the holder effective observation over 
the plain beyond and to render his control of the heights secure. 
But such is by no means the case. When the enemy is close to 
the crest he is constantly destroying observation posts or render- 
ing them untenable, with the result that it is extremely difficult 
to watch his movements. There is constant danger that he may 
mass forces without his plans being detected and launch a sur- 
prise attack strong enough to sweep the defenders of the crest 
back into the lowland. The only way to avoid such a calamity 
is to keep large forces always at hand, ready for any emer- 
gency. But this is costly, for it means a big casualty list during 
all the time the men are concentrated so close to the front; and 
their numbers, being immobilized, are unavailable for service 
elsewhere. Thus the holding of a ridge when the crest alone is 
gained is both expensive and uncertain, at the same time that the 
value of the ridge for observation is enormously diminished. 
Only when the heights are securely held and the enemy pushed so 
far back from the observation posts as to be able to interfere with 
them but little, can the operation against a dominating crest be 
regarded as successful. This success had not been achieved at 
Moronvilliers. The enemy had, however, been deprived of his 
view to the south, and he was anxious lest the French might main- 
tain sufficient observation northward to cause him serious em- 
barrassment. "The loss" of the heights, writes Ludendorff, "was 
a severe blow, as they afforded a view to the north, right over the 
whole country." 25 The enemy's hold on the vital line of hills 

* 5 Erich von Ludendorff: Ludendorff's Own Story, August, 1014-November, 
1018: The Great War from the Siege of Liege to the Signing of the Armistice As 
Viewed from the Grand Headquarters of the German Army, 2 vols., New York, 
1919; reference in Vol. 2, p. 26. 



SECOND CHEMIN DES DAMES BATTLE 303 

buttressing his front and barring the advance of the Allied armies 
was shaken but not broken. 

A great offensive intended to pave the way to a speedy ending 
of the war had been directed against the strongest natural 
obstacles on the Aisne-Champagne front, and had stopped short 
when it struck the stone wall. Nivelle was replaced, and a 
newly organized French high command set about solving the 
problem of breaking the German defense. 

Seeking to profit by the grave crisis in the morale of the French 
army, and aware of the incalculable value of the topographic 
positions which had been partially wrested from them, the 
Germans during the space of several months launched repeated 
counterattacks against the Chemin des Dames and the Cham- 
pagne positions. It has been stated that no less than 49 separate 
enemy divisions were employed^ in attacks against the Chemin 
des Dames; while 16 assaults by shock troops were launched 
against the Moronvilliers massif within ten days. But the 
obstacles which resisted the supreme efforts of the French were 
not to fall to German troops, and the enemy's heavy sacrifices 
netted him but slight gains. 

The Second Battle of the Chemin des Dames 
A brilliant operation carried through in the best French style 
on October 22, 1917, although small as to the territory directly 
affected, was large in its consequences. It has been noted (p. 244) 
that northeast of Soissons the plateau projects, northward where 
the Ailette valley makes its double bend near Chavignon, in 
such manner as to give commanding observation up the valley 
of the Ailette for a distance of 15 miles. This vital point had 
long before been crowned by Fort Malmaison. As the French 
front was now only about 2 miles south of the Fort Malmaison 
spur, an advance of a little more than that distance would bring 
under directly controlled artillery fire all the lines of commu- 
nication leading from the German positions on the Chemin 
des Dames northward across the Ailette valley. Caught in 
the rear by an enfilading fire, and with his communications cut, 



3 04 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

the enemy would be compelled to evacuate the Chemin des 
Dames and fall back north of the Ailette to the last remnant of 
the Marne plateau. The peculiar form of the terrain offered the 
opportunity of capturing 18 miles of the strongest part of the 
whole German line, at the price of advancing two or three miles 
on a five-mile front. 

A violent bombardment lasting several days, followed by the 
use of tanks on the level upland, smashed the enemy's surface 
defenses across the plateau. Preceded by airplanes flying low 
and firing on the defenders, the French swept forward, seizing 
fortified quarries, caverns, trench systems, Fort Malmaison — a 
whole vast complex of defensive works — in a single day. On the 
morrow the advance was pushed down to the foot of the slopes, 
and French observers, secure on the plateau spur, looked away up 
the valley behind the German lines. The sequel was not long de- 
layed. A few days later the enemy evacuated the Chemin des 
Dames plateau and withdrew north of the Ailette. At last the 
whole of the formidable Aisne-Chemin des Dames barrier was 
in Allied hands. The enemy had, after three years of bitter 
struggles, been pushed back upon the last rampart of the 
Marne plateau. 

The Third Battle of the Chemin des Dames 

After Ludendorff had driven his great wedge across the plain 
of the Somme in March, 191 8 (p. 170), and followed with a second 
drive across the plain of Flanders (p. 75) without wresting 
victory from the Allies, he sought to obtain a decision by a third 
gigantic effort in the last days of May. Surprise was the funda- 
mental element of his program, and to obtain it he spared no 
sacrifice. He selected as his third field of operations one of the 
strongest natural positions on the whole Allied front, the Chemin 
des Dames, which the Germans had lost the preceding autumn. 
Ludendorff was under no misapprehensions as to the difficulties 
of the terrain, although he considered it as less formidable than 
that of the Italian Alps which had been successfully overcome at 
Caporetto. If he could surprise the Allies by an attack on what 



THIRD CHEMIN DES DAMES BATTLE 305 

was by nature their strongest front, at a time when they had 
stripped it of men to defend weaker and apparently more seriously 
threatened parts, success might be achieved. 

Ludendorff's calculations were only too well founded, his 
preparations for the surprise only too skillful. The drive across 
the Somme plain had already come perilously near to separating 
the French and British armies, and a resumption of the offensive 
there might have disastrous results. Men must be secured to 
reinforce the danger spots. So formidable a position as the 
Chemin des Dames, with the natural moat of the Ailette in front 
of it, could be left to weak holding forces, and exhausted units 
from active sectors of the front sent there to recuperate. 
French forces were accordingly withdrawn and ordered west to 
Amiens, while from the British front five worn-out divisions 
were moved to the Chemin des Dames region during the month 
of May. Ludendorff must have smiled grimly when he received 
intelligence of this fact. 

There remained only the necessity of maintaining the utmost 
secrecy as to the plans of attack. Because he enjoyed the ad- 
vantages of interior lines, Ludendorff could concentrate his 
forces within a reasonable distance of the front without betraying 
any designs upon the Chemin des Dames; for the point of con- 
centration was equally adapted to a supposed renewal of the 
Somme offensive. At the last moment the assault troops were 
moved to the front under cover of darkness and concealed during 
the day in the woods, caverns, and houses. No unusual move- 
ment on the roads was permitted when it was light, and it has 
been said that the Germans purposely avoided any effort to pre- 
vent Allied airplanes from surveying their back areas, in order 
to make still stronger the impression that here there was nothing 
to be concealed. Everything depended on the element of sur- 
prise, for Ludendorff well knew that if the Allies suspected an 
attack and were prepared for it, he could not hope to progress far 
against the imposing series of barriers which lay before him — 
the Ailette trench, the great wall of the Chemin des Dames, 
the deep trench of the Aisne with its unfordable river, the Villers- 



306 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

Cotterets ridge, and, beyond that, other parallel trenches and 
ridges. 

On May 27 the storm broke with a bombardment said by 
veterans to be one of the heaviest of the war. The whole region 
was soaked in gas, and masks had to be worn miles behind the 
front. 26 On the plateau the surface was blown into a maze of great 
craters which intersected each other, making a picture of wild con- 
fusion impossible to describe. The surprise was complete, and 
the weakened defense simply melted before the German on- 
slaught. No definite information concerning the impending 
storm had reached the Allies until the 26th, only a few hours 
before the attack and too late to be of any great service. The 
enemy in overwhelming force swept everything before him. 
There was no time to rally on the successive lines of defense. In 
a few hours the Chemin des Dames, most formidable of barriers, 
was overrun, the Aisne trench passed and left behind, the Vesle 
crossed. By the 30th the Germans had reached the Marne. 

During such a sweep, when adequate forces for the defensive 
are lacking and those available are thrown into indescribable 
confusion, little resistance can be expected on even the strongest 
natural defense lines. It is only when the blow has spent itself, 
when the retiring forces are in a measure reconstituted, and 
after fresh reserves have taken their place in line, that the defen- 
sive advantages offered by Nature can be turned to account with 
any great measure of success. Yet even as the German flood 
rushed on we find it suffering checks here and there, where an 
island of resistance skillfully organized along some valley or on 
some dominating crest delayed its progress. In crossing the Aisne, 
along the south bank of which a temporary stand was made 
by the French and British, great numbers of Germans were 
killed. The French held the enemy at bay for a time on the 
Chivres bastion. Southwest of Soissons they checked him again 
along the deep ravine of the Crise, which prolongs to Soissons 
the southwest-northeast line of the Ourcq. The Germans en- 

26 A. Conan Doyle: The British Campaign in France and Flanders: 1918, 
Vol. 5, London, 1919. 



THIRD CHEMIN DES DAMES BATTLE 307 

deavored in vain to open out their new wedge to the west, to 
filter down the Ourcq valley, and to seize the Forest of Villers- 
Cotterets, of such inestimable value for shielding concentrations 
of troops from enemy eyes; and Ludendorff in his memoirs com- 
plains bitterly of the incapacity of the army headquarters respon- 
sible for the operations in this sector. Fierce fighting occurred at 
Longpont, where the wall of Villers-Cotterets ridge is trenched 
by the Savieres branch of the Ourcq. 

As the British fell back to the south and east, yielding the 
lower valley of the Ardre to the enemy, the mountain of Bligny, 
commanding a magnificent view of the whole length of the valley 
and of the roads crossing it from north to south, became the 
scene of a bitter struggle. Held by the British, the "mountain," 
really a plateau spur between two branchesof the Ardre (Fig. 62), 
brought German communications and battery positions under 
heavy fire. One German assault after another failed to dislodge 
the British from the crest. Realizing the critical value of the 
height and that his further operations must suffer seriously in 
case his back areas were observed and harassed from its summit, 
the enemy returned to the attack in overwhelming force and car- 
ried the hill by storm. With even greater determination the 
British in their turn stormed the coveted height, only to lose 
much of it again when their line was pressed farther back toward 
the Rheims bastion. As it was Allied observation along the length 
of the Ardre valley which grievously handicapped the German 
plans for their final offensive of July 15 and helped to turn it into 
a great Allied victory (p. 309), one can appreciate the willing- 
ness of both sides to pay dearly for possession of the domi- 
nating height. 

Early in June two American divisions were thrown into line to 
relieve the weary Frenchmen who had checked the enemy along 
the impressive trench of the Marne from Chateau-Thierry east- 
ward to Dormans and along the smaller trench formed by a branch 
of the Clignon northwest of Chateau-Thierry. At Bouresches 
and Belleau Wood, on the southwestern slope of the smaller 
trench, the Americans later defeated and threw back the enemy in 



308 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

brilliant local engagements. Ludendorff remarks that the Ameri- 
cans "were unskillfully led, attacked in dense masses, and failed." 27 
Similar "failures" were soon to drive the hosts of militarism from 
the terrible country of the Argonne Forest, albeit at heavy cost. 

When the German drive was finally halted, it had broken 
against the Ourcq Valley- Villers-Cotterets Forest barrier on the 
west, the Marne barrier from Chateau-Thierry to Dormans on 
the south, and the forested marsh and lake country of eastern 
Brie and the Mountain of Rheims on the east. Violent efforts 
to widen the salient by piercing the western and eastern barriers 
were unavailing, and an attempt to smash the Rheims strong- 
hold, now projecting like a bastion into the German front but 
guarded by the plateau bastion towering above it, was a com- 
plete failure. 

The Battle of the Oise 

Early in June, 1918, Ludendorff made a determined effort to 
capture the Allied wedge projecting into his line between the 
Montdidier salient produced by the drive of March 21 (p. 170) 
and the Marne salient produced by the drive of May 27, just 
described. The apex of this wedge (Fig. 55) was protected by 
the western continuation of the Chemin des Dames plateau strip, 
the Lassigny massif, the Forests of Laigue, Compiegne, and 
Villers-Cotterets, and the trench of the Aisne continued west- 
ward by the trench of the Aronde; and was bisected by the valley 
of the Oise. This time the Allies were not taken by surprise, so 
it was no occasion for wonder that the drive of June 9, down the 
Oise and to the west of it, unlike its predecessors soon encountered 
a vigorous resistance. The energy required to break through 
the "very strong positions on the high ground just west of the 
Oise," as Ludendorff calls the Lassigny massif, so weakened the 
offensive that it was halted along the trench of the Aronde 
and thrown back some distance to the north. On the spurs 
of the plateau at Tracy-le-Mont and westward along the north- 
ern margin of the Forest of Laigue, where the Oise valley turns 

27 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 269. 



SECOND MARNE BATTLE 309 

eastward to reinforce the obstacle, even less progress was made. 
In a few days the German high command gave up the task as 
hopeless and ordered the attacks to cease. 

The Second Battle of the Marne 
There could be no doubt that the invader would soon launch 
another drive in the desperate attempt to snatch victory from 
the stubborn Allies. Ludendorff would make one more gigantic 
effort to overthrow Germany's adversaries and thus let victory 
and world power, instead of downfall, be the portion of the Ger- 
man people. He must act quickly, for the American army was 
landing on the shores of France at the rate of from 200,000 to 
300,000 men a month, and the "failure" near Chateau-Thierry 
had taught him respect for the new antagonist. In feverish anxi- 
ety to get his great military machine in motion with the least 
possible delay, he grew careless of those rigid precautions of 
secrecy which had contributed so greatly to the success of his 
earlier drives. Foch soon knew that the last throw of the great 
gambler's dice would be made on the tableland of the Marne. 
The day of July 14 passed quietly. Late that evening people 
in a chateau 10 miles west of Paris, on the northeastern slope 
of the ridge crowned by the Forest of Marly, heard the dull 
rumble of distant artillery, and, looking forth from windows facing 
northeast, saw the whole horizon illumined with a ruddy glow 
which constantly flickered and flashed with yellower hues. It was 
the heavy artillery along the Ourcq and Marne, more than 50 
miles away. Ludendorff was blasting the way for his last great 
offensive with a hurricane of steel never before equaled in inten- 
sity. After a preliminary feint on the western border of the 
Marne salient, he would strike with all the available might of the 
German army against the barriers on the eastern side — the lake 
and forest country of eastern Brie and the Mountain of Rheims 
massif; while simultaneously a drive would be launched south- 
ward over the level chalk plain of the Champagne farther east. 
When the two jaws of the giant pincers met at Epernay or 
Chalons, the impregnable bastion of Rheims with its entrenched 



3 io BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

camp, subterranean fortresses, and overshadowing mountain 
stronghold would be swallowed up, a wide breach would be 
opened in the Allied lines, and the ultimate defeat of the Allied 
armies made possible. 

Foch was accurately advised as to the enemy plans. Excellent 
observation from critical points on the terrain (p. 246) and from 
the air, the increasing frequency of ammunition dump explosions 
in the enemy's back areas provoked without increase of bombard- 
ment, data elicited from captured prisoners, and other sources of 
information, enabled him to prepare for the onslaught. Pershing 
had already urged the employment of American troops in an 
attack on the exposed Marne salient, 28 and conditions were now 
propitious for putting such an operation into execution. The 
American 1st and 2nd Divisions and a famous French Moroccan 
division were selected to form the spearhead of the attack. Mass- 
ing men and tanks at the last possible moment under the conceal- 
ment of Villers-Cotterets Forest, Foch took the steps necessary to 
drive eastward, parallel with the ridge and valley barriers, as soon 
as the mass of the German reserves was fully engaged elsewhere, 
thus at one stroke to put a great army behind the enemy forces 
on the Marne and those attacking the eastern side of the salient. 
If the Allies could push rapidly eastward along the Aisne trench 
at the base of the salient, to meet their comrades advancing down 
the Ardre and Vesle, a worse than Sedan would end all German 
hopes. 

To meet the blow in the Champagne, the Fourth Army under 
Gouraud prepared to withdraw from the Moronvilliers massif, 
where their precarious position on the crest without control of the 
northern slopes and without the security necessary for the most 
effective observation, threatened to involve the whole front in 
trouble. The magnificent observation from the Rheims Moun- 
tain bastion, by means of which every road leading southward 
from many miles of the German front could be brought under 
accurately controlled artillery fire, assured a powerful reaction 

28 Final Report of General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief, American 
Expeditionary Forces, A nnual Rept. War Dept. for 1919, Vol. 1, Part I, pp. 547- 
642, Washington, D. C, 1920, pp. 580, 581. 



SECOND MARNE BATTLE 311 

against the enemy's advance over the western part of the plain. 
Farther east tree-top observatories on low mounds or hills would 
be used wherever available, while forward posts on the Moron- 
villiers massif, maintaining their positions as long as possible 
and communicating with the real front by means of wireless 
telegraph, signals, carrier pigeons, and volunteer runners, would 
give valuable information as to the movements of enemy columns. 
Advanced units were to make a show of covering a hasty retreat, 
while the army in reality had taken its stand on the level plain 
farther south, there to surprise the onrushing enemy with a per- 
fectly organized resistance. 

The success of the defense shattered the whole German plan 
of campaign. Ludendorff's shock troops hurled themselves in 
vain against the marshy woods of eastern Brie, the badly dis- 
sected plateau of Tardenois, the impregnable bastion of Rheims 
Mountain. French, British, and Italian troops gave ground 
slowly under the initial blow; then, solidly based on the difficult 
terrain, brought the attack to a standstill. Along the Marne bar- 
rier on the south the right wing of the German attack collapsed 
with equal promptness. Between Chateau-Thierry and the bend 
of the river at Jaulgonne the American 3rd Division bore the 
brunt of the shock. "Day was just breaking; and through the 
mist, fog, and smoke one could see the boats and rafts loaded to 
the gunwales with enemy infantrymen and machine gunners set 
out for the southern bank. That was about 3.30 o'clock. Yet 
not one crossed that day in the center of the sector. . . Scores 
of those boats were shattered and sunk or else disabled and sent 
drifting harmlessly down the river." 29 In the Jaulgonne bend 
and farther east the enemy succeeded in throwing a number of 
pontoon bridges over the barrier, and spread out upon the edge of 
the plateau to the south. But here the French, employing their 
"yielding defense" tactics and aided by the American 28th Divi- 
sion, soon halted the advance. At the western terminus of the 
Jaulgonne bend one regiment of the American 3rd Division, 

29 Lieutenant Lovejoy, quoted by Shipley Thomas in: The History of the A.E.F. 
New York, 1920, p. 118. 



3 i2 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

although outflanked on both sides by enemy forces which had 
crossed the river, successfully defended the barrier at its most 
critical point. "To this regiment had been entrusted the front 
where the Surmelin River, flowing due north down a narrow val- 
ley, emptied into the Marne, and along both sides of this river 
lay two splendid roads leading to Montmirail, upon which the 
Germans had planned to transport their artillery and supply 
trains for the exploitation of the first success. The Surmelin 
River valley, then, with its two roads, was the crucial point in 
the whole attack; and the 38th Infantry was holding this front 
with the object of preventing any pontoon bridges from being 
thrown across the [Marne] river to connect with these roads. . . 
Time and time again the Germans in boats and pontoons tried 
vainly to land, but each time the boats were sunk in midstream 
either by rifle fire or by hand grenades." 30 

The enemy troops which had passed the Marne barrier to the 
east and west of this point found themselves in an impossible posi- 
tion. Checked on the slopes of side ravines which they could not 
traverse under the heavy fire from above, and with the crossings 
over the river behind them being shelled, they hung on desper- 
ately, waiting for relief. Ludendorff emphasizes the "remarkable 
achievement" of crossing the Marne barrier and the tremendous 
difficulty of extricating the troops which performed the feat when 
it appeared they were in a trap the exits from which were under 
heavy enemy fire. No one who saw their twisted and torn bodies, 
crumpled in weird postures and scattered thick as flies over the 
exposed upland and valley walls, will begrudge them Ludendorff 's 
tribute: "The troops on the Marne had lived through days of 
severe trial and behaved like heroes." 31 

East of Rheims the smashing of the great German attack was 
even more abrupt and decisive. Gouraud's Fourth Army, in- 
cluding the American 42nd Division, brilliantly executed the 
defensive measures previously prepared to break the force of the 
enemy's supreme blow. Swarming down the southern slopes of 

so Thomas, The History of the A.E.F., pp. 120-122. 
31 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, p. 31. 



SECOND MARNE BATTLE 313 

Moronvilliers and over the plain, in pursuit of an apparently de- 
feated foe, the Germans in the Champagne suddenly staggered 
under a hurricane of shells from unsuspected batteries which 
slaughtered them like rabbits driven into a pen. Looking north 
over the plain from a swaying tree-top observatory next morning 
one could see here and there a monster German tank, silent and 
motionless in front of the French line, mute symbol of a giant 
offensive that had halted short of its objective. The shells were 
still screaming overhead, but the greatest enemy attack of the 
war had been stopped dead in its tracks. 

Then Foch launched his counterblow from the shadows of 
Villers-Cotterets Forest. The inadequate screen of holding 
troops on the western side of the Marne salient swayed under 
the impact and yielded ground. Soon the forces attacking the 
eastern side heard the roar of guns growing louder in their rear. 
Halted on the Marne and in the Champagne, checked in the east- 
ward drive, and threatened with disaster in the rear, the much- 
heralded German "Friedensturm" collapsed utterly. Orders to 
abandon the offensive and fall back to the strong defensive posi- 
tion of the Aisne-Vesle trench were issued. 

No nearer line was available to the defeated Germans. French 
and American forces already stood astride the Villers-Cotterets 
ridge ready to take in the flank an enemy who should try to halt 
along the eastern half of the crest. French and British com- 
manded the whole length of the Ardre from their observation 
posts and were astride its upper branches. The Mountain of 
Rheims had remained securely in Allied hands. The first strong 
natural barrier not flanked by the Allies was the Aisne trench pro- 
longed by the Vesle; and to it the Germans now beat a retreat, 
closely pressed by their French, British, Italian, and American 
pursuers. 

The Allied forces driving eastward south of the Aisne unfor- 
tunately experienced considerable delay in overcoming the obsta- 
cle formed by the Crise valley and its side ravines, the Missy 
ravine next west, and the exposed plateau spur between these 
two natural trenches. The difficult terrain was well defended, and 



314 BATTLEFIELD OF THE MARNE 

failure to cross it promptly deprived the Allies of the chance to 
cut off a great part of the German armies caught in the salient. 
The British advanced down the Ardre far enough to reconquer the 
mountain of Bligny with its valuable command of the valley and 
so to harass severely the enemy's retreat in that section ; but they 
could not go far toward closing the Marne salient before the Ger- 
mans escaped. By August I the salient was extinguished, and the 
badly shattered armies of Ludendorff were reorganizing under the 
protection of the Aisne-Vesle trench. 

A few weeks later one of the mighty blows that were now 
smashing in first one part, then another of the German front, 
struck the sector crossing the plateau obliquely from the Aisne 
west of Soissons to the Oise at Ribecourt. Here the French in 
two days drove the enemy behind the protection of the Oise- 
Ailette trench from Noyon eastward to near Coucy-le-Chateau. 
German forces pinned back against the Oise barrier experienced 
great difficulty in extricating themselves under fire and escaping 
to the northern bank. After the barrier of the Vesle had delayed 
the advance of the Allies in that sector for some time, it was 
breached by the Americans near its junction with the Aisne. 
Two weeks more of hard fighting were required to dislodge the 
enemy from this strong position and to force him back behind 
the Aisne trench east from Soissons. Under the never-ceasing 
pressure of the Allies the Aisne trench east of Soissons was soon 
given up and a further retirement effected to the line of the 
Ailette as far east as the point where the Oise-Aisne Canal turns 
south to pierce the plateau divide; east of that, to the crest of 
the Chemin des Dames. When the difficult task of dislodging the 
enemy from the Chemin des Dames plateau strip, which he 
could no longer defend with his old-time energy, was finally 
achieved, the victorious Allies stood before the last of the plateau 
strongholds, the northernmost upland strip of the Laonnois, 
defended by the natural moat of the Ailette. Its capture from 
the defeated and disheartened German armies was now possible, 
but only at a heavy sacrifice. It could more easily be secured 
as the fruit of offensives pushed across less formidable terrains. 



SECOND MARNE BATTLE 315 

By early October attacks across the level plain of Champagne 
had proved so difficult to support that an extensive retreat to the 
Hunding-Brunhilde Line was decided upon. Beginning Septem- 
ber 26, in unison with the American offensive in the Argonne, 
the French Fourth Army under Gouraud had struck a series of 
sledge-hammer blows for five days, scoring daily advances until 
caught in the left flank by German fire from the Moronvilliers 
massif, a position naturally so formidable that Gouraud sought 
to turn it instead of attacking it. This checked his advance, and 
along the trench of the Py River, dominated on the north by the 
chalk ridge of Notre Dame des Champs and Blanc Mont, the 
enemy fought furiously to stop the turning movement which 
would flank him out of the higher Moronvilliers massif. Only at 
heavy cost was the Py finally crossed, the chalk ridge taken by 
French and American troops in a combined frontal and flank 
attack, and the advance continued. Moronvilliers, rendered un- 
tenable, was abandoned, and the whole German front began to 
crack. It was then that the great retreat was ordered. First to 
the line of the Suippe valley, then to that of the Retourne, the 
retrograde movement proceeded by definite stages. Finally 
across the whole sweep of the Battlefield of the Marne the enemy 
fell back to his strong northern defenses behind the marshy valley 
which traverses the chalk plain from Sissonne to the Serre at 
Froidmont, and the trench of the Aisne from Chateau-Porcien up- 
stream past the gateway of Rethel to the Argonne Forest barrier. 
On October 13 the Germans abandoned Laon. The Marne pla- 
teau was now wholly free of the enemy, and the Champagne soon 
saw the last of his rearguards. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN: 
THE CUESTA-AND-LOWLAND BATTLEFIELD 

A short time ago you stood on the crest of the chalk escarp- 
ment far east of the central Marne plateau, the dreary wastes 
of the Dry Champagne behind you, the fairer prospect of the 
Wet Champagne in front. As you gazed down upon the verdant 
plains some two hundred feet below, watered by countless 
pleasant streams and sheltered on the east by the dark slopes 
of a forest-clad mountain barrier, the scene was one inviting 
exploration. Thirty miles eastward would bring you to im- 
mortal Verdun; forty more to the fortress of Metz. Straight to 
these distant objectives, across the grain of the country keep 
your unchanging course, and you may easily read in the succes- 
sion of sloping upland, steep scarp, and level lowland, the secret 
of the part which the Argonne, Verdun, and St. Mihiel played in 
the World War. 

Leave, then, your viewpoint on the upland of the Dry Cham- 
pagne at the west (Fig. 79), descend the white slopes of the 
chalk scarp, and cross eastward over the Wet Champagne. 
Your shoes, heretofore powdered white with the dry chalk dust, 
may soon receive a baptism of mud, for you walk on the belt 
of soft clays and marls which were quickly worn down to form 
the depression, and water stands long on the low, impervious 
surface. Shallow lakes and ponds, the etangs of the French, 
compel occasional detours, and many streams flow eastward 
from the chalk scarp to meet the Aisne running in a deeper 
trench along the eastern edge of the lowland. Forest patches 
occur, but for the most part you pass cleared lands and culti- 

Note. For Chapters VII and VIII the reader should constantly consult the 
detailed map of the battlefield in the pocket (PI. IV) and the block diagrams (Figs. 
84 and 94). 



GENERAL ASPECT 317 

vated fields stretching far away to the north and south, like 
an open pathway five or six miles broad, between the pine- 
planted chalk upland on the west and the massive forests of 
the Argonne on the east — a curved pathway, since its northern 
and southern extensions bend strongly back toward the north- 
west and southwest, conforming to the curved outcrops of the 
Paris Basin rocks. 

Beyond the Aisne, perhaps even before you reach it (Fig. 78), 
you begin to ascend what was once the gentle backslope of a 
thick sandstone formation, now deeply dissected by stream 
erosion. At once you plunge into the dark shadows of an al- 
most unbroken forest, for the steep valley walls, the isolated 
upland surfaces, and the sandy, infertile soil are neither easy 
nor profitable to cultivate. This is the savage country of the 
Argonne Forest. Penetrating the woodland maze you climb 
one precipitous valley wall after another only to cross dry, 
stony uplands where cooling breezes murmur among the trees, 
and to descend abruptly into other ravines in whose damp 
depths silence reigns unbroken. The way is exceedingly arduous, 
and when you have pushed painfully on to the high eastern 
crest, you are only too glad to see open country again, spread 
out below you in the lowland drained by the River Aire. The 
eastern slope of the highlands on which you stand is straight and 
steep, in strong contrast with the western slope you have just 
ascended; for while both are badly cut by valleys and ravines, 
you have traveled eight miles in a direct line from the Aisne 
valley to reach the crest, whereas the Aire River, seemingly 
just at your feet, is in reality little more than a mile away. 
Clearly the westward-dipping sandstone formation has been 
eroded to form one of those asymmetrical plateaus, having one 
gentle and one steep slope, which are so common in this and 
other regions and are known to geographers and geologists as 
"cuestas." 

As in the case of the eastern scarps of the Marne plateau 
and the Dry Champagne, the steeper slope of the Argonne 
cuesta faces toward Germany. To the northwest its forested 



3i8 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 



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mass stretches for many miles, oc- 
casionally cut through from east 
to west by a river gateway; but 
southward, contrary to the rule in 
the Paris Basin, the upland sud- 
denly drops down to the level of 
the plain and abruptly vanishes — 
a mystery easily understood when 
it is found that in this direction 
the resistant sandstone formation 
thins out until it disappears. The 
weak sands and clays upon which 
the Aire lowland was eroded are 
then in direct contact with the 
overlying weak marls and clays of 
the Aisne lowland ; and the result 
is a very broad depression giving a 
much expanded "Wet Cham- 
pagne." The forest barrier of the 
Argonne is not entirely lacking in 
the southern region, however. An 
infertile belt of the Wet Cham- 
pagne, continuing the curved axis 
of the Argonne, is covered with 
great forest patches and innumer- 
able lakes, constituting a zone of 
wild land ten miles wide lying be- 
tween two belts of predominat- 
ingly cleared land on the east 
and west. 

Plunging down through the for- 
est of the eastern scarp of the 
Argonne upland, you cross the 
open fields of the narrow Aire low- 
land, and again begin to ascend 
the more gentle western slope 



GENERAL ASPECT 




Fig. 79 — Generalized sketch map of the Battlefield of Verdun. White areas 
are lowlands, ruled areas uplands, cross-ruled areas mountains. For topographic 
details and place names referred to in the text, see PI. IV and Figs. 84 and 94. 



of another asymmetrical plateau, or cuesta. The country 
is less rugged than in the Argonne, and woodland areas, are 
less continuous, although extensive forests do occur. When 
you reach the crest, some distance west of Verdun, the eastern 
face is again strikingly abrupt, but the lowland beyond is 



320 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

shallow and poorly developed. Evidently you are on a minor 
limestone layer forming a subordinate cuesta on the backslope 
of a much grander example which you can see rising in front 
of you to the east (Fig. 78). Pausing only to note that even 
the subordinate upland constitutes a more or less distinct belt 
of woodland patches, in which some villages preserve the ter- 
mination "-en-Argonne," and that the narrow and shallow 
lowland to the east is prevailingly cleared, you descend into 
the latter depression and begin again the gradual ascent of a 
surface badly dissected by the short tributaries of the Meuse 
valley. Before reaching the rim of the western valley wall you 
observe that once more you are passing through a northwest- 
southeast belt of wooded country, although clearings break the 
continuity of the forest cover. 

At last you gaze down into the wonderful, winding gorge 
of the Meuse. Evidently the massive limestone upon which you 
have been walking, and which you see exposed here and there 
in cliffs or in quarries cut in the valley walls, continues to slope 
upward to the east beyond the river; at least the surface is 
still higher in that direction, and the abrupt terminating scarp 
has not yet been reached. You are merely looking upon a 
trench cut in the backslope of the cuesta. But what a trench ! 
How it sweeps in majestic, graceful, serpentine curves, which 
the little river wriggling through the open meadows on the 
valley floor makes no attempt to imitate! Surely a larger 
stream than the present Meuse cut the larger valley pattern. 
On either wall the slopes and spurs are stripped of their woods 
and planted in fields and vineyards, while road, railway, and 
canal show that the northwest-southeast valley clearing is an 
important highway lying between the forested uplands on 
either side. Guarding this highway, just where the great east- 
west route from Rheims to Metz crosses it, the picturesque 
old town of Verdun sits silent in the center of its ring of 
fortresses, a sleepy sentinel which, roused by danger, will 
bellow defiance at the enemy who would pass by "the great 
white way." 



GENERAL ASPECT 321 

Verdun must again be visited for a more careful study; but 
now you press onward, up the eastern wall of the Meuse trench, 
and over the upland beyond, where you traverse the somber 
shades of another forest belt. Some eight miles of wilderness, 
perhaps, and then in the twinkling of an eye there bursts upon 
the delighted vision a panorama of green fields, shining lakes, 
and woodland patches (Figs. 80 and 81) to which no pen can ren- 
der justice. You stand on the crest of the limestone cuesta, 
and more than five hundred feet below you, a gigantic map in 
natural colors spread out at your feet, is the clay plain of the 
Woevre. Picturesque villages nestle at the base of the steep 
scarp, where springs burst forth above the impervious clay: 
Ornes,* Eix, Vigneulles, Heudicourt, Apremont. The white 
strips of road stretch straight across the level plain, cutting 
narrow trenches through the woodland areas and passing other 
villages whose names awaken a thousand memories. Here and 
there an outlying erosion remnant or butte, like Mont Sec, re- 
minds one of the forces which are constantly sapping the face 
of the scarp. 

Down into the plain of the Woevre and eastward over its 
muddy, marshy, lake-dotted surface you pick your way, wonder- 
ing how men could ever live in the low morass while enemy 
guns poured fire on them from above. Slowly you begin to 
rise, as once more the land ascends gently toward another 
east-facing scarp. After some miles you find firmer footing on 
another massive limestone formation coming up from beneath 
the clays (Fig. 78). But the lowland is unusually broad, and you 
may travel ten or fifteen miles, in some places much more, before 
the forests become closely spaced and the streams flowing east- 
ward to join the Moselle cut deeply enough into the rising land to 
dissect it into broad-topped plateau remnants. Suddenly the 
great trench of the Moselle yawns at your feet. But you press on 
across it, till you stand once again on the crest of a steep escarp- 
ment which dominates a vast lowland of green fields and forest 

* Unless otherwise stated, places named in Chapters VII and VIII may readily 
be located on PI. IV, along the plateau scarp, river, or other topographic feature with 
which the names are associated in the text. 



322 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 




GENERAL ASPECT 



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BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 
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GENERAL ASPECT 325 

patches (Fig. 82). Over the level expanse the small river Seille 
slowly takes its uncertain way. Just to your left rise the towers of 
Metz, while far away to the south Nancy lies at the base of the 
scarp, concealed from view by a protruding spur of the upland. 
On the eastern horizon the land is evidently sloping upward to the 
crest of yet another cuesta scarp. But you have reached the limit 
of the terrain which we shall wish to include in the Battlefield of 
Verdun and have journeyed far enough to fix firmly in mind the 
fundamental elements of its topography. 

It is clear that the rock layers of the Paris Basin, alternately 
resistant and weak, and dipping gently a little south of west, 
have caused the forces of erosion to produce a systematic alter- 
nation of plateaus and lowlands, parallel to each other and trend- 
ing northwest-southeast. All of the uplands are of the asym- 
metrical, or cuesta, type with the steep scarp directed toward 
Germany, the gentle backslope toward Paris (Figs. 78 and 79). 
Repeatedly a narrow valley trench is cut into the backslope of 
the upland roughly parallel to the crest. As a rule the uplands 
are forested, the lowlands and valley trenches cleared. Hence 
there is also a systematic alternation of parallel cleared and 
forested belts trending northwest-southeast. 

It does not require a military expert to discern the defensive 
value of such a terrain in time of war. An enemy advancing 
on Paris from the east would find his way barred by a succes- 
sion of formidable barriers: muddy and marshy lowlands, 
precipitous scarps, rugged zones of dissected plateau, belts of 
forest, and deep river trenches. Maneuvering in the lowland 
is particularly difficult when, in wet weather, the wet clay soil 
restricts movements to the roads and even renders many of these 
unfit for travel; especially since the roads, easily visible on 
the exposed plain, are subjected to accurate artillery fire directed 
by observers stationed on the commanding heights of the 
adjacent plateau rim. The military value of the escarpments 
lies not merely in the better observation from their crests 
and the difficulty of attacking their steep slopes, but also from 
the fact that they force roads and railways to converge and 



326 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

pass through the relatively small number of natural gateways 
which rivers have carved through them. By fortifying these 
gateways and concentrating mobile forces near them, the defense 
may be secured even if there are not sufficient troops to garrison 
heavily all the intermediate stretches of country. There the 
natural strength of the escarpments will offset the weakness in 
men; and not until the gateways are captured by the enemy can 
he move forward troops and supplies to press any advantage he 
might gain in the intervening areas. Hence the importance of the 
Grandpre gateway through the Argonne upland (Fig. 79), the 
Toul gateway through the Meuse upland, and the Nancy gateway 
through the Moselle upland. The opportunities for defense of- 
fered by the upland remnants of a dissected plateau, by fortified 
forests, and by the natural moat of a deep river trench have been 
dwelt upon in earlier pages and need no new emphasis here. Few 
regions offer a terrain where progress across the grain of the 
country would be more difficult in the face of a determined 
defense. 

A hostile advance directed from the north or south, parallel 
with the axis of the barrier system, while avoiding some of the 
difficulties described above, would nevertheless find the task 
one of tremendous difficulty. The narrow cleared lowlands 
and valley trenches are corridors easy to traverse in time of 
peace; but in time of war no advance along them would be 
possible except as the wooded uplands dominating them on 
either side were cleared of the enemy. But this is a difficult 
and costly undertaking, given the power of resistance readily 
developed in a forested hill country. The narrow corridor of 
the Meuse, with its cross spurs projecting into meander loops 
and its forest belts frowning down from the eastern and western 
uplands, was to prove impregnable against one of the most 
terrific offensives launched by the Germans during the entire 
war — their six months' struggle to advance southward along 
the corridor to the fortress of Verdun. When the Allies sought 
to push their "victory offensive" northward along the Aisne and 
Aire corridors, the Americans were compelled to clear the Ar- 



STRATEGIC POSITION 327 

gonne ridge at a frightful cost in human lives. Verdun thus 
lies in the center of a terrain which is peculiarly formidable 
to an enemy, from whatever direction he may choose to 
approach. 

The parallel belts of the Verdun terrain, caused by the erosion 
of southwest-dipping rock layers of different degrees of resis- 
tance, will repay a closer examination, after we have looked for 
a moment at the strategic location of the battlefield. 

Strategic Position of the Battlefield of Verdun 
The Meuse cuesta was the last of the asymmetrical plateaus 
which guarded Paris on the latitude of Verdun. After 1871 
the crest of the next scarp to the east lay within German terri- 
tory, crowned by the fortifications of Metz. The shortest 
road from German territory to Paris ran from the walls of 
Metz almost due westward, straight through the heart of the 
Verdun battlefield. Thus Verdun and its natural barriers stood 
at the danger point on the eastern frontier, a strong border 
march of France. 

Northwest of Verdun the plateau scarps curve more and 
more toward the west, gradually converging and finally dying 
out west of Mezieres. Until that point is reached they form 
successive walls bordering on the southwest a lowland route, 
which, passing through southern Luxemburg and Belgium into 
France, lies between the plateaus and the Ardennes Mountains 
(Fig. 79). Through this natural corridor runs a railway of the 
very highest strategic importance, and in or near it lie Sedan of 
fateful memory and the fortress towns of Longwy, Montmedy, 
and Mezieres. But far more valuable for its defense is the formid- 
able terrain of the Verdun battlefield flanking the corridor on 
the south. Entrenched among the fastnesses of the parallel 
plateaus, lowlands, valley trenches, and forest belts, an army 
of defense would so threaten the flank of an enemy desiring 
to advance by the corridor as to compel him to seek victory 
on a difficult terrain of the defenders' own choosing, or to leave 
enormous containing forces to protect his rear, before the 



328 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

route would become available. As Ludendorff tells us: "From 
a strategical point of view Verdun as the point of attack [by 
the Germans in their great 19 16 offensive] was well chosen. 
This fortress had always served as a particularly dangerous 
sally-port, which very seriously threatened our rear communica- 
tions, as the autumn of 1918 disastrously proved." 1 

South of Metz the German frontier in 1914 left the Moselle 
cuesta and turned southeast, cutting across other cuestas and 
lowlands to reach the massive buttress of the Vosges Mountains. 
Here Germany might seek to launch an invasion southwestward 
into France, following along the broader lowlands typical of 
this section. Rather than fortify their entire eastern frontier 
with permanent military works on a big scale, the French 
elected to place opposite Germany two stretches of fortified 
wall, leaving between them an open gateway through which 
the invasion would have to be directed. Limited to an opening 
thirty or forty miles wide and flanked on either side by im- 
pregnable buttresses heavily garrisoned, the enemy advance 
would lose much of its danger and could the more readily be 
controlled. For one of these flanking buttresses the mountain- 
ous terrain of the Vosges was selected, and an unbroken system 
of fortresses constructed from the Swiss border near Belfort 
to the southern crest of the Vosges and down the canyon of 
the Moselle River to Epinal. For the other, the difficult country 
of the Verdun battlefield was chosen, the chain of fortresses 
extending from Verdun along the Meuse valley to Toul on the 
Moselle. There is thus no Verdun-Toul-Epinal-Belfort line of 
fortresses, properly speaking; there are only a Verdun-Toul 
line, and an Epinal-Belfort line (Fig. 83). Between Toul and 
Epinal is the unfortified gateway in the center of which is the 
town of Charmes, and which is therefore known in French 
military circles as the "trouee de Charmes." In contrast to 
the unfortified zone along the Meuse north of Verdun including 

1 Erich von Ludendorff: Ludendorff's Own Story, August, 1014-November, 
1918: The Great War from the Siege of Liege to the Signing of the Armistice As 
Viewed from the Grand Headquarters of the German Army, 2 vols., New York, 
1919; reference in Vol. 1, p. 244. 



STRATEGIC POSITION 



329 



the Sedan lowland, sometimes called the "Meuse gateway," 
the Charmes gap is also known as the "Moselle gateway." 

The Verdun terrain is thus much more than an obstacle 
barring the direct route to Paris and a stronghold guarding 
the Sedan corridor. It is half of that formidable system of 

defense by which France 
sought to deter a power- 
ful enemy from violating 
her eastern frontier. It 
was inevitable that its 
conquest must form a 
principal objective in 
any campaign directed 
from the east. 

Both the Meuse and 
the Moselle Rivers flow 
approximately parallel 
to the northeastern fron- 
tier of France for great 
distances. If a straight 
line be drawn from the 
Ballon d'Alsace at the 
southern end of the 
Vosges Mountains to 
Sedan near the Belgian 
border, more than one 
hundred and fifty miles 
away, no part of the line 
will be as much as a 
dozen miles from one or the other of these two rivers (Fig. 83). 
Their trenches are by position and direction, as well as by form, 
well adapted to serve as defensive barriers against a German in- 
vasion. But it is not in the nature of the French, neither is it 
military wisdom, to condemn an army to a purely defensive role. 
Since the best defensive may be an offensive, it is vital that the de- 
fensive forces of a nation should be in position to launch an 




Fig. 83 — The Meuse and Moselle defensive 
lines parallel to the German border. A straight 
line from the' Ballon d'Alsace in the southern 
Vosges to Sedan is nowhere a dozen miles from 
one of the river barriers. The stars show the 
principal forts. 



33Q BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

attack the moment a favorable opportunity presents itself. 
Hence an army, when falling back behind a river barrier, fights 
hard to preserve one or more "bridgeheads" on the enemy's 
side of the obstacle, areas large enough to keep that enemy 
from seizing or shelling the crossings over which the defenders 
may later wish to advance to an attack. Otherwise the de- 
fensive forces may discover that, although they have smashed 
the enemy's attacks all along the natural moat, they are unable 
to complete the victory by attacking him at the critical moment, 
because, weakened and disorganized as he is, he is nevertheless 
strong enough to hold the practicable crossings. 

In a subsequent chapter we shall see that the very essence 
of De Castelnau's defense of the Nancy region lay in holding 
a great plateau bridgehead prepared by Nature on the eastern 
side of the Moselle barrier. Here we have to note that the whole 
system of defensive works in the Verdun sector is based on a 
similar natural bridgehead. Both north and south of the area 
in question the Meuse River lies east of the plateau scarp, in 
the broad lowland where we might naturally expect it to be. 
But between Dun-sur-Meuse (Fig. 79) and a point southwest of 
Toul the river has, owing to a complicated geological history 
which we cannot now review, acquired a course cut in the back- 
slope of the plateau. Here, therefore, the plateau projects 
forward east of the valley trench, forming a great fortified 
wall with steep eastern face and forested summit defending 
the river crossings behind it. The erosion gaps at Toul and 
near St. Mihiel may be considered to divide the wall into 
several bridgeheads, of which the northernmost, opposite 
Verdun, is the largest and most continuous. Should the French 
armies be driven back to the natural trench of the Meuse, 
they would still be in position to pass to the offensive so long 
as they held any one of the several bridgeheads. Thus the 
strategy of defending France's eastern frontier is based in part 
on a striking natural peculiarity of the Verdun battlefield. 

After what has been said above it will not appear surprising 
that the Verdun region, favored with a terrain admirably 



SURFACE FEATURES 331 

adapted to defense and possessing both in its general position 
and in its topographic form natural advantages of the first 
magnitude, should have been made one of the greatest en- 
trenched camps of France. The ancient economic value of the 
Meuse valley is gone, the former political power of Verdun has 
vanished, and the frowning citadel of the town is today the true 
emblem of the region's importance as a vital frontier stronghold. 
Let us now examine more carefully the successive belts of 
terrain which we have found systematically developed on the 
Battlefield of Verdun. 

Surface Features of the Battlefield of Verdun 
the aisne lowland 

We have already had occasion to emphasize the salient 
features of the verdure-clad plain eroded on the non-resistant 
but impervious marls and plains coming up from under the 
chalk cuesta. This "Champagne Humide," as the French call 
it, forms a very broad plain on the south, drained westward 
by the Ornain and Saulx, tributaries of the Marne. Here the 
impervious soils hold on the surface innumerable shallow ponds 
and lakes, and large tracts remain abandoned to forest growth. 
Not all of the terrain is level, or even approximately so, for the 
less resistant beds continuing southward the Argonne plateau- 
forming sandstone are sufficiently hard to give a broad zone 
of low hills which might be called the "Little Argonnes" after 
the Forest of the Argonnelles with grows upon them. Other 
beautiful forests, such as those of Belval, Belnoue, and Lahey- 
court, and a labyrinth of lakes both large and small help to 
make of this such a continuation of the Argonne barrier as 
justifies the termination "-en-Argonne" found in the names of 
several villages of the region. 

Farther north, between the Champagne and Argonne cuestas 
(Fig. 79), the western part of the Wet Champagne is continued 
as a narrower lowland drained from west to east by the numerous 
tributaries of the Aisne, born in springs at the base of the chalk 



332 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

scarp and nourished by surface waters which cannot sink into 
the impervious beds of the plain. This Aisne lowland as we 
may properly call it, or "Vallage" as it is known to the French, 
is less humid than its counterpart to the south. Lakes and 
forests are fewer, and the broad, gently undulating surface, 
where covered with a fertile loam, is famous for its rich harvests, 
while natural prairies cover the alluvium of the valley floors. 
Abundant grain and hay of exceptional quality not only supply 
the regiments of cavalry stationed at several points in the 
valley and at the Camp of Chalons a few miles to the west, but 
encourage the raising of horses, including a breed prized in 
the artillery service. 2 Villages and farms are scattered over 
the fruitful surface, and an important railroad and highway 
run through the lowland from end to end. An army might 
traverse this natural corridor and live well as it passed. 

River Barriers 

But the story is not yet complete. In addition to the dif- 
ficulties which a hostile advance would encounter by reason 
of the rugged hill country of the Monts de Champagne on the 
west and the Argonne on the east, from neither of which could 
defending forces easily be dislodged, the terrain of the lowland 
itself offers obstacles of some importance. The impervious 
and clayey soils make difficult fields for maneuvering in wet 
seasons and transform unmetaled roads into a succession of 
ruts and mud holes. The rivers tributary to the Aisne flow 
transversely across the plain, constituting thus an endless 
succession of barriers at which defending forces might dispute 
passage. Some among them, like the Auve, Bionne, Tourbe 
(French for "peat"), and Dormoise, wend their ways through 
marshes and peat bogs bordered by willows. Farther north 
the Aisne River itself and its lateral canal, crossing the lowland 
from Attigny on the east to Rethel on the west, constitute an 
obstacle of sufficient importance to have led the Germans to 
select it as the basis in this region of their famous Hunding- 

2 Emile Chantriot: La Champagne: Etude de geographie regionale, Paris, 1906, 
pp. g6-97- 



AISNE LOWLAND 333 

Brunhilde defensive system (Fig. 55). To the south, where the 
Aisne lowland expands into the broader Wet Champagne, the 
mazes of ponds, lakes, and woods become an added obstacle. 
Where the interlacing channels of the Chee, Ornain, and Saulx 
have cut a single broad lowland, threaded by a canal and in- 
numerable watercourses, and dominated on the south by the 
upland of Sermaize covered by the massive Forest of Trois- 
Fontaines, we have a truly formidable barrier. It was here that 
the German invasion of 1914 was finally halted and. repeated 
violent offensives abruptly checked. 

As on the clay plain of Flanders, so on the impervious soils 
of the Aisne lowland, rainfall sinks into the ground with difficulty. 
Hence much of it escapes as surface run-off, flooding the per- 
manent streams and forming countless temporary brooks 
which disappear in dry weather. The lowland, with its south- 
ward continuation in the broader Wet Champagne, thus forms 
one of the gathering grounds for the floods which periodically 
inundate such rivers as the Aisne and Marne in their courses 
across the arid chalk, where tributary streams are few and 
surface waters scarce. The Aisne, receiving the floods brought 
in by its transverse tributaries in the lowland and by the streams 
draining the steep slopes of the Argonne upland, is particularly 
dangerous. Its level at Vouziers may quickly rise ten or more 
feet, and all efforts to control the river and confine its waters 
in a limited channel have failed. Hence we usually find the 
valley floor deserted, especially below Challerange, where the 
stream has acquired a goodly size, the towns and villages being 
perched in places of safety on the spurs of the lowland hills. So 
difficult, indeed, has been the problem of controlling the turbu- 
lent stream that efforts to make it navigable by canalization were 
finally abandoned. From Vouziers only is water traffic possible, 
and then not by the river but by a lateral canal parallel to 

its course. 

River Gateways 

There are certain points in the Aisne lowland and in its 
continuation southward which acquire considerable military 



334 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

importance, not so much from any features of the lowland 
itself as from the relation of these points to military geographical 
elements in the terrain of adjacent belts. Among these are the 
towns guarding the entrances to or exits from river gateways 
through neighboring highlands. Rethel and Vitry, at the 
entrances to the Aisne and Marne gateways through the chalk 
cuesta, have already been mentioned in other connections. 
A number of exits from deep defiles through the Argonne 
cuesta played a significant role in the World War: Attigny 
near the mouth of the Le Chesne gateway, Vouziers command- 
ing the Fournelle exit, Challerange opposite the broad opening 
carved by the Aire, Vienne-le-Chateau and Vienne-la-Ville 
where the gorge cut by the Biesme River emerges on the low- 
land, and Villers-en-Argonne at the mouth of the gateway of 
Triaucourt which offers passage around the southern end of 
the Argonne highland. Revigny stands at the exit of the 
Ornain gorge through the subordinate Barrois cuesta. Here 
pass the Strassburg-Paris railway and other lines of importance, 
as well as the Marne-Rhine Canal, giving to the town a higher 
military value than attaches to the larger Bar-le-Duc, situated 
in the gorge itself. St. Dizier, guarding the outlet of the Marne 
gorge, is the natural focus of a number of important railways, 
highways, and canals converging upon this exit into the Wet 
Champagne. It has an even larger strategic significance, for 
with Vitry-le-Francois across the lowland, fortified nearly four 
hundred years ago by Francis I, St. Dizier guarded the passage 
of the Marne against enemies advancing either along the low- 
lands or down the converging valleys to reach the open plain 
of the Dry Champagne. For centuries it stood fortified against 
the invasions which so often menaced this part of France. 
Ste. Menehould, for several centuries a strong point guarding 
the eastern frontier of France, has much military importance 
today as the western portal of the Les Islettes passage, partly 
natural and partly by tunnel across the Argonne. This is the 
route of the direct railway from the entrenched camps of Rheims 
and Chalons to Verdun and Metz, and of a national highway, 



ARGONNE PLATEAU 335 

both of which at Ste. Menehould intersect the railway and high- 
way traversing the lowland longitudinally. The value of the 
junction is military rather than commercial, and the activity of 
the little town depends in no small measure on its cavalry 
garrison. 

THE ARGONNE PLATEAU 

East of the Aisne lowland a layer of resistant sandstone some 
three hundred feet thick rises gradually from under the marls 
and clays to form the asymmetrical Argonne plateau (Fig. 78). 
Evidently the geological conditions under which the whitish 
sand and intermingled clay particles which make up this rock 
were accumulated caused it to be restricted to a lens-shaped 
deposit, thinning out to the north and south. Hence the 
asymmetrical plateau, or cuesta, to which it gave rise, is not 
so continuous as the other cuestas of the Paris Basin but dis- 
appears northward and southward, the southern termination 
being strikingly abrupt. As far as it goes, however, the form 
is quite typical, with its gently inclined western slope and 
steep eastern scarp; and it is therefore proper to include it 
as one of the series of concentric cuestas constituting the natural 
defenses of Paris (p. 224). 

The crest of the plateau, near the eastern side of the six 
or eight-mile wide upland, rises only a thousand feet above 
sea level, or less than five hundred above the bordering low- 
lands. Yet the topography is rugged and picturesque in the 
extreme, recalling the scenic features of the Vosges Mountains 
(p. 41 g). The secret of this remarkable dissection lies in the 
character of the porous sandstone, which is resistant enough 
to stand high where erosion is not vigorous, but at the same 
time is so deeply fissured and so poorly cemented as to be pro- 
foundly trenched wherever streams are active. Even small 
ravines may have depths of three hundred feet or more below 
the steepsided ridges which separate them, and narrow clefts 
or chasms, sometimes expanding into veritable caverns, are 
numerous. Wild and savage in aspect, these erosion forms have 
invited the inhabitants to bestow upon them fantastic names, 



336 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

like the Fairies' Hole and the Devil's Gorge. It is in the south 
that the terrain is most elaborately sculptured, as in the region 
of the Beaulieu Wood; while, north of the section drained by 
the Biesme River and its branches, one can see in places large 
areas of the gentle backslope but little eroded. Thus on the 
parallel of Varennes one could, from the valley of the Aisne, 
ascend gradually to the crest on a broad, sloping tableland 
covered by the Grurie Wood, then drop abruptly down the 
eastern scarp to the valley of the Aire, without ever crossing 
a ravine of major importance. Areas so well preserved from 
erosion are the exception, however; and the typical Argonne 
terrain shows a labyrinth of deep ravines or chasms between 
narrow ridges and plateau strips which suggest the original 
form of the plateau only by the gradual westward decrease of 
their average altitudes. It is in this ruggedness of form that the 
Argonne finds its initial value as a military barrier. 

The Argonne Forest 

Although not of an imposing elevation, the Argonne plateau 
does rise high enough to provoke an abundant rainfall from 
the winds which pass over it — hence the heavy mantle of forest 
which cloaks the rugged terrain. On the ridge crests and re- 
maining strips of plateau upland the rains sink deeply into 
the porous rock. As a result the upland is arid, the soil stony, 
and vegetation, aside from the trees, comparatively meager. 
Clearings in the forest are few, for man finds it difficult to live 
where water is so hard to reach and where the soil is so un- 
responsive to his labors. The few villages perched on the 
upland, like Beaulieu in the south, La Grange-aux-Bois dominat- 
ing the route over the Les Islettes pass, Florent on an old route 
across the upland into the Biesme valley, and La Croix-aux- 
Bois on a similar but even more important upland route farther 
north, persist on sites chosen for defensive purposes despite the 
difficulties imposed by the aridity of their surroundings. In 
the valleys the water which sinks so quickly into the porous 
sandstone on the uplands, but which is held in the lower levels 



ARGON NE PLATEAU 337 

of the same rock by the impervious clays immediately under- 
neath, reappears in the form of numerous springs. Conse- 
quently the valleys and ravines are more humid, vegetation is 
more luxuriant, and the forest is there rendered more impassable 
by a dense growth of underbrush. Shaded by trees and smaller 
growth and drenched by frequent rains and by water seeping 
from the lower ground, the unmetaled roads of the Argonne 
in places become almost impassable, the more so because the 
sand formation contains sufficient clay to make a tenacious 
mud. Chains of ponds and lakes fill some of the valley floors, 
especially in the south, contributing their share toward making 
the region difficult to traverse. But it is the hundreds of square 
miles of almost unbroken forest mantling over the rugged terrain 
which, next to the shape of the land, makes the Argonne so 
formidable to an attacking army. 

Longitudinal Valleys 

The southern half of the Argonne plateau is rent in twain 
lengthwise by the deep chasm carved by the Biesme River. 
This stream flows from southeast to northwest, maintaining 
the remarkable parallelism of direction manifested by the 
Aisne, Aire, Meuse, and Moselle Rivers, until near its mouth 
it curves westward to join the Aisne. Since one of its head- 
water branches cuts nearly through to the Aire lowland at Cler- 
mont and another almost reaches the low Triaucourt gateway 
near Beaulieu, it is only natural that "The Valley," as the natives 
call it, should have become a highway of some importance 
across the barrier. Les Islettes, at the junction of the two 
branches of the Biesme just referred to, is the strategic point 
where cross the east-west railway and highway connecting 
Rheims and Chalons with Verdun and Metz, and the north- 
south route along the valley floor. Unfortunately that part 
of the Argonne upland west of Les Islettes has no transverse 
gorge connecting with Ste. Menehould in the Aisne lowland, 
corresponding to the gorge from Les Islettes to Clermont on 
the east. Thus it is that the railway has to tunnel through 



338 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 



the western upland, and the 
highway to surmount its 
crest, in order to avoid a 
long detour northward 
down the Biesme valley. 
This fact detracts but little 
from the strategic impor- 
tance of Les Islettes, which 
derives a slight additional 
military significance from 
the fact that it is the great 
depot for shipping excel- 
lent hay grown on the 
natural prairies of the 
Biesme valley to cavalry 
garrisons of the sur- 
rounding regions, includ- 
ing Verdun. The nat- 
ural strength of the 
"defile of Les Islettes" 
is so great that in 1792 
the Duke of Bruns- 
wick considered it im- 
pregnable to direct 
attack. 

One could almost 
include the Aisne 
with the Biesme as 
one of the longitu- 
dinal valleys of the 
Argonne; for, while 
it drains the Aisne 
lowland and in part 
lies on the floor of 
that broader de- 
pression, elsewhere 




Fig. 84 — Block diagram of the northern Argc 



ARGONNE PLATEAU 



339 




plateaus, showing the salient features of the terrain. 



it is cut in the backslope of 
the Argonne cuesta (Fig. 
78), somewhat as the Meuse 
River is cut in the back- 
slope of the Meuse cuesta 
and the Moselle River in 
the backslope of the Mo- 
selle cuesta. This would 
seem to suggest that the 
same geological history 
which had operated to 
give the Meuse arid Mo- 
selle valleys their peculiar 
positions was beginning 
to operate in the case of 
the Aisne. All we need 
to observe here, how- 
ever, is the fact that the 
Argonne barrier is rein- 
forced against an at- 
tack coming from the 
east by this parallel 
trench near its west- 
ern base, even if the 
Aisne trench has con- 
siderably less defen- 
sive value than the 
deeper moats of the 
Meuse and Moselle. 

Defiles of the 
A rgonne 

Of the trans- 
verse valleys of 
the Argonne the 
most impressive 



340 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

by far is the broad trench of the Aire, which from Grandpre 
cuts squarely across the barrier to the Aisne lowland near Chal- 
lerange (Fig. 84). A railroad of some military importance 
runs through this broad pass to connect the military stations 
in the Aisne valley and the great entrenched camps of the 
Champagne with the steep eastern face of the Argonne plateau. 
An important highway also takes advantage of the pass for a 
part of its course. It was here that Dumouriez expected the 
main Prussian attack in 1792, which he prepared to resist by 
organizing a strong natural position that "offered several lines of 
defense which united with one another and mutually supported 
each other." 3 The Prussians found the position almost as for- 
midable as Les Islettes and refrained from a direct attack. 
Farther north the little Fournelle River has carved a gorge clear 
through the plateau to Vouziers in the Aisne lowland. This pass 
is traversed by a narrow-gauge railway (Fig. 84) and in part by a 
national highway. Still another transverse gorge has been cut a 
few miles farther north by a small stream rising near Le Chesne 
on the east and joining the Aisne above Attigny. Here the 
Argonne barrier is beginning to die out, but the Le Chesne defile 
is of some military importance and carries a canal uniting the 
Aisne Canal with the Meuse River below Sedan. South of the 
Grandpre pass there is no through-going trench except the 
indirect valley of the Biesme already described. But the low 
gateway of Triaucourt, carved by the Aisne and its branches 
between the southern end of the Argonne plateau and the lake- 
forest barrier of the Little Argonnes, has distinct military value. 
It is easy to defend, being dominated by the southern end of the 
Argonne upland and by the butte of Senard in the midst of a 
large clearing almost completely surrounded by the forests of 
Belval, Belnoue, Laheycourt, Argonelles, Four, and those of the 
southern Argonne. 

The defile of Les Islettes is not the only one of the Argonne 
passes which takes advantage of a transverse gorge for a part 

'Arthur Chuquet: Les guerres de la Revolution, 11 vols., Paris, 1886-96; ref- 
erence in Vol. 2 (Valmy) , p. 49- 



ARGONNE PLATEAU 341 

of the way only, then crosses by a short-cut over the upland. 
The well-known defile of La Chalade, connecting Vienne-la- 
Ville and Vienne-le-Chateau on the Aisne lowland side of the 
barrier, with Varennes in the Aire lowland, utilizes the lower, 
transverse portion of the Biesme gorge, then turns north- 
eastward up a side ravine to surmount the eastern crest. North 
r f the Grandpre pass the famous defile of La Croix-aux-Bois, 
Dreed by the Prussians in 1792, connects Vouziers in the Aisne 
Dwland with Boult-aux-Bois and Buzancy in the Aire lowland, 
)y following minor ravines only at either end of its passage, the 
greater part of its course lying on a flat-topped ridge remnant 
of the plateau. Even at Le Chesne pass the principal highway 
leaves the gorge followed by the canal, to cross the upland into 
the Fournelle gorge at Quatre Champs and thus to reach Vouziers. 

Defensive Value of the Argonne 

Despite the valley defiles which pierce the Argonne plateau, 
and remnants of the upland surface which offer fair crossings, 
the "wilderness of deep gorges and steep ridges" covered with 
"an immense forest-cloak of oaks, birches, mountain ash, and 
pines, with an impenetrable underbrush of heather, ferns, and 
broom" 4 remains one of the most formidable military barriers 
of France. For centuries it stood as a bulwark of defense mark- 
ing the frontier between the Kingdom of France and the German 
Empire. The boundary lay for a time along the gorge of 
the Biesme River, but the French kings, appreciating the high 
military value of the "tangle of wooded heights," early pushed 
eastward to secure entire control of the obstacle. The natural 
adaptation of the longitudinal mountain gorge for the purposes 
of a boundary line is evidenced by the fact that in modern 
France the Biesme for much of its length divides the Depart- 
ment of the Marne from the Department of the Meuse. 

Charles V sought to avoid the costly delay involved in a direct 
attack on the Argonne barrier by executing a turning movement 

4 Raoul Blanchard and Millicent Todd: Geography of France, New York, 1919, 
p. 127. 



342 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

designed to outflank it from the south, a design frustrated by the 
heroic resistance of St. Dizier. Later Blucher was forced to pass 
around the obstacle, and in 1870 the invaders' Third Army was 
executing a similar movement to avoid the formidable Argonne 
terrain when it learned of the French advance toward Sedan. 

But it was in the early days of the French Revolution that the 
Argonne best served its role as a protective barrier. "Behold," 
said Dumouriez to his adjutant-general as he pointed to a map 
showing the defiles of the Argonne, "Behold the Thermopylae of 
France." The commander of the Revolutionary forces then seized 
the passages through the Argonne barrier and, with the advan- 
tages of the terrain all in his favor, awaited the onslaught of the 
Prussians. "The most important thing is to gain time," the 
Minister of War had written to Dumouriez. "We have to organ- 
ize our forces, augment our material of war and stocks of provi- 
sions, and encourage the people with the sight of our efforts. . . 
Kellermann is marching to join you and will aid you. The coun- 
try is well adapted to the defensive." Before the minister's in- 
structions reached him Dumouriez "had recognized the true 
strategic position which it was necessary to defend, the line of 
the Argonne." At Paris there was rejoicing when it was learned 
that the French held the defiles from Le Chesne southward, for 
it was believed that now the enemy could not force the formid- 
able barrier. 5 

The Duke of Brunswick was of like opinion, in so far as a direct 
assault was concerned; but if he could trap Dumouriez into 
relaxing vigilance at one of the northern passes by feigning a 
heavy attack against the defile of Grandpre, he might pierce the 
northern part of the barrier and, turning south along the Aisne 
lowland, threaten the defenders of the other passes from the rear, 
thus forcing a precipitate retreat. So successful was this ruse 
that when small Austrian forces attacked the pass of La Croix- 
aux-Bois they found it defended by absurdly inadequate works 
manned by a pitiful handful of soldiers under a captain. Short 
work was made of the defense, and the Argonne barrier was 

6 Chuquet, Les guerres de la Revolution, Vol. 2, pp. 33, 35, 41, 116. 



ARGONNE PLATEAU 343 

crossed by the invaders, not because it was weak, but because of 
criminal negligence of Dumouriez. 

That erratic but brilliant commander skillfully repaired the 
consequences of his blunder. Swinging back to the southwest, 
and resting his right wing on the solid buttress of the southern 
Argonne, his left extended toward Chalons, he faced north to 
meet the enemy's advance. Kellermann now joined him, and, 
thus reinforced, he defeated the invaders in the apparently trivial 
but really decisive battle of Valmy. Even when inadequately 
defended the Argonne barrier had delayed the enemy's advance 
long enough for the French to concentrate sufficient forces to win 
one of the world's most important victories. 

Sudden attacks on France in overwhelming numbers, forbid- 
ding by the very swiftness and power of the onset any adequate 
defense of the Argonne, may in 1870 and 1914 have created the 
impression that under modern conditions of warfare its military 
value has vanished. The increasing number of passable routes, 
the reduction of forest areas on the adjacent lowlands, and the 
draining of marshy valleys have removed some of the difficulties 
of traversing the rugged region; but new methods of organizing 
forests for defense, the enormously increased range, precision, and 
power of artillery fire, permitting effective control of approaches 
across cleared zones in front of an obstacle, and other improve- 
ments in modern warfare, have greatly increased the value of 
such natural features of the terrain as are found in the Argonne. 
The tremendous cost to the French and Americans of dislodging 
the enemy from the forested stronghold was sufficient to demon- 
strate its defensive advantages even when subjected to a flank 
attack. No opportunity for testing its resistance to a frontal 
attack occurred in the present war; but the opinion may be 
hazarded that under such a test it would not have been found 
wanting. We have only to qualify this opinion by the remark 
that the great size of the modern battle front more readily 
subjects a barrier of limited length, like that of the Argonne, 
to the danger of a turning movement. It was in part for this 
reason that the French made no effort to increase the natural 



344 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

strength of the obstacle with elaborate permanent fortifications. 
The Germans made no mistake, however, in basing one of their 
strongest defensive systems, the Hunding-Brunhilde Stellung, on 
the Argonne plateau from Attigny to Grandpre (Fig. 55), fronted 
by the natural moat of the Aisne valley and the transverse trench 
of the Aire. 

THE AIRE LOWLAND 

The narrow lowland which is drained northward by the Aire 
as far as Grandpre, then southward by the Agron and northward 
by the Bar, need not detain our attention long. None of the longi- 
tudinal streams mentioned is of any great size, nor are their 
tributaries of great importance. But the open lowland, with the 
exposed floor of the river valleys, sometimes marshy and fre- 
quently flooded, is a natural moat which adds to the defensive 
value of the rugged Argonne behind it. 

No continuous railway traverses the length of the depression, 
but parts of two standard-gauge and several narrow-gauge 
lines, and for a short distance a canal, serve its transportation 
needs, in so far as these are not met by the national highway 
following the Aire for nearly fifty miles and by the other roads 
which cross it in various directions. Since the headwater 
portion of the Aire River lies in the imperfect lowland eroded 
in front of the Barrois plateau some miles east of Bar-le-Duc 
and crosses obliquely northwest into the Aire lowland in front 
of the Argonne plateau, its valley forms an easy although far 
from direct connection between the two depressions, of which 
advantage is taken by a highway and narrow-gauge railway, 
included among those already mentioned. It is evident that 
the Aire lowland is no great route of travel and traffic and that 
it could have no such commanding importance as a line of 
communication in time of war as might the Aisne lowland. 
Nevertheless, as a route of invasion from the north and as a 
minor supply line for an army during occupation, the cleared 
lowland offers distinct advantages over the almost impassable 
terrain of the Argonne on the west and the partially wooded 
Barrois upland on the east. 



BARROIS PLATEAU 345 

Among the strategic points within the Aire lowland are the 
towns commanding the entrances to the transverse gateways or 
defiles through the Argonne barrier: Le Chesne, Chatillon, 
Noirval, Grandpre (long the guardian strong point defending 
the principal gateway), and Clermont. Boult-aux-Bois is the 
eastern terminus of the ridge road via La Croix-aux-Bois, and 
Varennes occupies a similar position with respect to a road 
crossing into the Biesme valley at Le Four de Paris. Small 
places all, scarcely more than villages; yet destined to play 
their part in the drama of the World War. 

THE BARROIS PLATEAU 

From under the clays and sands of the Aire lowland rises the 
layer of resistant limestone forming the subsidiary cuesta lying on 
the western flank of the great Meuse plateau (Fig. 78). A suitable 
name for this upland is difficult to find. Popularly the name 
Argonne is extended over all the district, although it is better 
restricted to the Argonne Forest upland already described. 
The asymmetrical plateau formed by the limestone layer is a 
very striking feature farther south, in the district around Bar- 
le-Duc known as the Barrois; and, since there is no break in 
the plateau from that region to the section east of the Argonne 
Forest, we may call the whole of this single, continuous cuesta 
"the Barrois plateau." Like the other cuestas of the Paris 
Basin, its asymmetry is strongly marked, the eastern scarp 
dominating Cuisy, Malancourt, Esnes, and other villages 
nestling at its base with a frowning face which at Sivry-la- 
Perche becomes almost a cliff. It is not difficult to guess that 
this long line of villages nestles at the base of the scarp to get 
the water issuing as springs from just above the clay beds 
underlying the limestone; and, as they lie in small ravines cut 
back into the face of the upland, protected on either side by 
projecting spurs which offer facilities for extended observation, 
it was inevitable that the sites of the villages should become 
of tactical importance in any fighting for control of the 
plateau crest. 



346 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

Although much dissected, the Barrois plateau shows no such 
rugged terrain as makes the Argonne redoubtable. Between 
Verdun and Varennes the gentle backslope is well preserved, and 
the extensive woods of Montfaucon, Malancourt, Avocourt, 
Cheppy, and Hesse clothe a surface in which deep ravines are 
comparatively rare. As the soil is less sterile and the terrain less 
rugged than in the Argonne, the amount of land abandoned to 
forest growth occupies much less than half the surface, the 
remainder showing a succession of cultivated fields and meadows 
covering rolling hills and giving a landscape of pleasing beauty. 
Over such a country roads may pass in every direction, and only 
at the steep eastern scarp will difficulty be encountered. Even 
here Nature has prepared some easy passages. The Andon River, 
tributary to the Meuse at Dun-sur-Meuse, has cut its way 
obliquely southwest back into the upland, so far that its head is 
found well down the gentle western slope. It is by this favorable 
defile that the main highway runs from Varennes to Dun, con- 
necting the Aire lowland with the trench of the Meuse. Farther 
to the south the Aire and several of its tributaries slash obliquely 
through the scarp from southeast to northwest, giving a succes- 
sion of similar gaps. The Verdun-Rheims railway and national 
highway ascend a side ravine of the Meuse to the scarp, crossing 
it near Nixeville to drop into one of the transverse trenches at 
Blercourt; while a narrow-gauge railway and another high- 
way skirt the base of the scarp to reach the oblique gateway 
of the Aire itself. The cols of Souilly, Heippes, Mondrecourt, 
Rignancourt, and Chaumont-sur-Aire are all minor gateways 
of this class. Should the main railway connecting Verdun 
with Chalons and Rheims be severed by an enemy, it is evident 
that these more southerly openings through the Barrois cuesta 
might acquire considerable military importance. 

While it is true that deep gorges and steep-walled ridges 
are rare on the western slope of the Barrois plateau, this does 
not mean that the region is devoid of military obstacles. The 
streams are small and easily forded except when in flood; but 
lines of bushes and trees usually border them and during the 



BARROIS PLATEAU 347 

war afforded concealment to enemy forces which swept the 
open approaches with machine-gun fire. Some ravines, deep 
and narrow, concealed narrow-gauge railways. Still smaller 
gullies, apparently recent in origin and probably due to excessive 
erosion following deforestation of the slopes, provided the 
Germans with excellent machine-gun nests and artillery posi- 
tions screened by a natural camouflage of bushes. 6 

Both at the extreme north and the extreme south of the 
Verdun battlefield the Barrois cuesta is more profoundly dis- 
sected, giving a rugged topography. In the north this appears 
to be the result of the nearer approach of the Aire lowland (there 
drained by the Bar) and the valley of the Meuse, the branch 
streams tributary to each soon interlocking their headwaters 
and reducing the upland to a complex of ridges and valleys. 
Here an important route from Stenay on the Meuse ascends 
a tributary of the latter river, crosses a ridge divide, and descends 
another ravine to Buzancy in the Aire lowland. Far away to 
the south it is the Marne River which trenches the Barrois 
upland and badly frays it with numerous short branches but 
which at the same time cuts a pathway through the barrier 
carrying railroad, highway, and canal (p. 334). 

Natural Observatories 
Two types of elevations on the Barrois plateau have supreme 
military importance. First are the spurs projecting eastward 
from the crest of the escarpment, giving commanding observa- 
tion over the whole western slope of the Meuse upland, to and 
beyond the valley of the Meuse River. The spur north of 
Sivry-la-Perche, due west of Verdun, rises far higher than any 
point on the Argonne plateau to the west and looks down upon 
the Meuse valley and its chief stronghold. All the western forts 
included in the fortress ring of Verdun are commanded by 
this dominating height, from which an enfilading fire could 

6 Kirk Bryan: Memorandum on the Water Courses and Valleys of the Zone of 
Advance of the 5th Army Corps, prepared for use of the Corps during the Argonne 
campaign. Published as part of the same author's paper: The Role of Physiography 
in Military Operations, Scientific Monthly, Vol. 11, 1920, pp. 385-403. 



348 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

be directed upon the parallel ridges and ravines forming the 
natural defenses of the city (p. 365). Should an enemy succeed 
in seizing this vital crest, the fate of Verdun and of the whole 
line of the Meuse would be in jeopardy. South and north of 
the little village of Esnes the spurs known as Hill 310 and Hill 
304 command the northern defenses of the fortress city. Hill 
304 also dominates the highly important natural trench formed 
by the Forges brook, which rises on the face of the escarpment 
near Malancourt and flows eastward past Bethincourt to join 
the Meuse near the village of Forges. The Forges trench, one 
of the barriers against an advance on Verdun from the north, 
could never be securely held by an enemy so long as the de- 
fenders dominated it from the projecting plateau spur of Hill 
304. Hence we shall find the slopes of this small spur drenched 
with blood in the great battle for Verdun in 1916. 

Quite different in origin and appearance is the second class 
of elevations possessing peculiar military value. These are 
erosion remnants of the Argonne Forest sandstone and under- 
lying clays, left as isolated buttes here and there upon the 
backslope of the Barrois cuesta. They are of interest to the 
geologist and geographer as proving the former eastward con- 
tinuation of the formations now worn back to make the steep 
face of the Argonne cuesta; but to an army they offer exceptional 
observatories commanding a wide sweep of country in every 
direction. Vauquois, southeast of Varennes, is perched on the 
summit of one of these buttes. To the casual observer its 
smiling slopes blooming with fields and orchards, and its crest 
crowned with a picturesque cluster of low houses above which 
towered the spire of the village church, bespoke no unusual 
significance. But from the summit a long stretch of the Aire 
lowland is open to view, as well as a broad expanse of open 
plateau country to the north and the valleys bounding the 
Forests of Cheppy, Montfaucon, and Malancourt on the 
east. So long as the crest was held by the Germans the route 
northward through the Aire lowland was blocked, Allied obser- 
vation of enemy movements north of the butte was difficult or 



MEUSE PLATEAU 



349 



impossible, accurate Allied artillery fire on important enemy 
supply lines was prevented, and long-range German fire on Allied 
positions and communications was assured. Hence it was most 
bitterly contested, and concentrated artillery fire soon battered it 
into a shapeless mass of upturned earth (Fig. 85). It is the butte 
of Montfaucon, however, which best exemplifies the possible 
value of such land forms. Situated near the high eastern crest of 
the Barrois plateau, in the midst of a vast upland clearing from 
which valleys radiate outward and downward to the east, north, 




Fig. 8s — The butte of Vauquois, transformed by the Germans into a strong point 
buttressing their line. Its military importance may be measured by the scars of 
battle which disfigure its once smiling slopes. (French official photograph.) 

west, and southwest (Fig. 84), this outlier of the Argonne "dom- 
inates the whole region; its views extend for several leagues in 
every direction. It is not only a remarkable observatory, but 
forms a strong point of support of advantage to an army wishing 
to defend the left bank of the Meuse opposite Vilosnes and 
Sivry-sur-Meuse." 7 It was here that the Crown Prince was to 
take his station during the great Battle of Verdun. 



THE MEUSE PLATEAU 

The thin bed of clays at the base of the Barrois plateau do 
not give a conspicuous or continuous lowland in front of the 
escarpment. Only at the south does the upper Aire occupy a 

7 Niox, quoted by Paul Joanne: Dictionnaire geographique et administratif de la 
France, 7 vols., Paris, 190s, article on Argonne, Vol. I, p. 149. 



35o 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 




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MEUSE PLATEAU 



351 




352 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 




MEUSE PLATEAU 353 

veritable lowland, and this for no very great distance. We 
may therefore treat the Barrois plateau as a subsidiary cuesta 
lapping up over the western flank of the main Meuse cuesta, or 
asymmetrical plateau, and proceed at once to examine the 
latter belt of the Verdun battlefield. 

A brief glance at any good map portraying the topographic 
features of northern France is sufficient to show that the mas- 
sive limestone formation (Fig. 78), of which the Barrois plateau- 
maker was but a forerunner, has produced one of the most 
remarkable asymmetrical plateaus not merely in France but in 
any country. With notable continuity this upland belt extends 
from southwest of M6zieres close to the Belgian border, in a 
great sweeping arc southeast, south, and southwest, to the 
borders of the central highlands of France, a distance of some 
three hundred miles. In the Verdun battlefield its crest rises 
more than 1,300 feet above sea level and in places dominates the 
eastern lowland of the Woevre by nearly 600 feet. The upland, 
although trenched by numerous short streams, preserves 
considerable areas of its former fiat surface, and in the dis- 
tant view conveys to the eye all the evenness of sky line 
that the term plateau may imply (Figs. 86 and 87). The 
east-facing scarp, notched by countless ravines, is clearly marked, 
and the transition from plateau to lowland is sometimes sud- 
den and striking in the extreme (Fig. 88 and PI. IX, A). 
Seldom does Nature mark her topographic boundaries with such 
precision. 

In general the limestone upland is dry, heavily forested, 
and sparsely inhabited. The most frequent exceptions to this 
are found north of Verdun, where a layer of marl at the top 
of the main limestone series has not been wholly eroded. Here 
enough water is retained close to the surface to supply the needs 
of a few villages which stand on the upland, in the midst of culti- 
vated fields made possible by the more amenable soil. The 
unusual height of the villages above the adjacent lowland and 
valley bottoms is emphasized by the termination "mont" in names 
made familiar to the world by one of the greatest battles in his- 



354 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 




MEUSE PLATEAU 355 

tory: Haumont, Beaumont, Louvemont, and Douaumont. Else- 
where we find vast stretches of forest on each side of the Meuse, 
two parallel bands of shadow and silence crowning the lonely- 
upland, separated by the valley clearing in which road, railway, 
and canal bear the life of the country between sloping vineyards 
and smiling meadows. 

The Cotes de Meuse 

The east-facing escarpment is called by the French the Cotes 
de Meuse, an expression difficult to render into English. "Meuse 
Cliffs" is not satisfactory, for the Cotes do not necessarily show 
vertical or even very steep slopes. "Meuse Escarpment" is 
probably the best equivalent. On the Battlefield of Verdun 
the escarpment usually exhibits a steep upper slope where the 
limestone formation is exposed and more gentle lower declivities 
on the clays' (Fig. 89). Although occupying an extremely 
narrow strip of territory, the Cotes form a zone of more habit- 
able country between the dark forests of the dry plateau above 
and the muds and marshes of the wet plain below. Located 
along the spring line at the contact of the fissured limestone 
with the underlying impervious clays, villages on the well- 
drained slopes near the base of the Cotes find sufficient water 
for their needs, but not enough to prove a plague. "The slopes 
have a more equable climate, are less exposed to frost than the 
valley floor, and are protected from the northwest winds as 
well. They are sunny, especially when facing southeast; an 
admirable topsoil consisting of decomposed bits of limestone 
mixed with clay covers the slopes and is well suited to any crops. 
Orchards and vineyards thrive here. All conditions are favor- 
able to man. . . The inhabitants can exploit the forests 
above. . . Quarries in the limestone cliffs furnish building 
materials for the villages. . . These escarpments have played 
a great part in the history of the country from a military point 
of view, for since time immemorial they have been the rampart 
of France against Germanic invasions." 8 

8 Blanchard and Todd, Geography of France, p. 133. 



356 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

That a great plateau, dominating all the low country to 
the east from a commanding height (PI. VI), seamed with ravines 
providing innumerable concealed artillery positions, cloaked 
with a forest assuring ample secrecy to the maneuvers of the 
defending forces, and served by a well-protected lateral com- 
munication trench carrying men, munitions, and supplies by 
water, rail, and road to all parts of the front — that such a 
plateau should prove a well-nigh impregnable position when 
attacked from the lowland to the west would seem too obvious 
to require demonstration. It is a remarkable fact that, while 
the Argonne and other cuestas of the Paris Basin are repeatedly 
trenched by the cross valleys of numerous streams, there is 
not a single valley which cuts clear through the Meuse cuesta 
from one side to the other between the River Bar on the north 
and the headwaters of the River Marne on the south, a distance 
of one hundred and thirty miles. In the Middle Ages the 
forested mass of the plateau was for a time the strong defense 
of France's eastern frontier, the boundary between her own 
and the territory of the German Empire running along the 
Meuse River. Small wonder that the French of a later day have 
made this plateau and its river trench the northern foundation 
of their strongest frontier defense system. 

Yet not all portions of the Meuse plateau offer equal resistance 
to an enemy attack. At the north the Meuse trench opens 
out upon the Woevre lowland, offering a gateway by which 
the plateau stronghold may be entered (Figs. 79 and 84) . But the 
Meuse pathway to Verdun is long and crooked, and we shall later 
see that it does not lack the protection of strong natural defenses. 
In any case it merely leads into the barrier and not through it. 
For the next fifty miles southeastward there is not a single 
break in the wall more serious than the short ravines, like 
that of Vaux, which cut but a mile or two back into the 
scarp, leaving the upland barrier of the Hauts de Meuse 
(Meuse Heights), as the French call the plateau strip between 
the Woevre lowland and the Meuse trench, unbroken. The 
valley of Les Eparges is longer, but, as it soon bends to trend 



MEUSE PLATEAU 



357 



parallel with, and just back of, the scarp, it merely adds 
another trench to the series of barriers to be overcome in an 
advance westward (Fig. 90). 

Natural Bastions and Curtains 

At Hattonchatel the plateau juts far forward into the Woevre 
lowland, forming a great bastion (Fig. 88 and PI. VI) measuring 




Fig. 90 — The crest of the Meuse plateau transformed into a formidable stronghold 
in the Les Eparges sector. In the foreground are the ruins of Combres. (French 
official photograph.) 



ten miles from its apex to the Meuse trench in its rear, which the 
French call the "Salient of Vigneulles," and which commands a 
magnificent view of the Woevre plain in a great sweep from the 
northwest around to the south. Perched on this strategic 
point, Hattonchatel was long a fortified stronghold to which 
the adjacent country looked for protection. At the base of the 
vineyard-clad apex of the bastion lies the village of Vigneulles, 
of which we shall hear more. 



358 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 



South of the Hattonchatel bastion is a deep re-entrant, or 
"curtain" as it would be called in an artificial fortress, where 
the headwaters of the Rupt de Mad, a small stream tributary 
to the Moselle, have worn their way back almost to the Meuse 
trench near the town of Commercy (Fig. 91 and PI. VI). It is in 
this "Commercy curtain" that we find one of the weak points of 
the barrier. It may be that in an earlier period, when the Meuse 
plateau still stretched far eastward, longer and larger streams 




Fig. 91 — Portions of the Barrois, Meuse, Moselle, and Saffais plateaus, showing 
the former course of the Moselle River westward from Toul to the Meuse, and the 
salients and re-entrants along the several plateau scarps forming natural bastions 
and curtains. (Modified after Davis.) 



than now exist here flowed down its west-dipping slope into the 
Meuse trench, cutting lateral gorges deep below the upland. 
As the east-facing scarp was worn back the heads of these 
rivers would be cut off; and by the time the scarp reached its 
present position nothing would remain of the beheaded rivers 
save small rivulets occupying the lower ends of the large gorges. 
Whether this or some other history is responsible, 9 the striking 
fact is that the Meuse plateau in the vicinity of the Commercy 
curtain is repeatedly cut across by deep, stream-carved notches 
by which one may easily pass from the Woevre lowland into 
the Meuse trench. 

9 J. Vidal de la Blache: Etude sur la vallee lorraine de la Meuse, Paris, 1908, 
p. 63 et seq. 



MEUSE PLATEAU 359 

Strategic Defiles 
The longest of the notches (PL VI) begins a few miles south- 
west of Vigneulles near the village of Creue and continues 
through the upland past Spada to reach the Meuse at Maizey. 
It is well known in French military circles as the "defile of 
Creue or Spada," and Fort Paroches west of the Meuse is 
designed to block it by pouring an enfilading fire upon any 
enemy column advancing along the road which runs through 
the depression. South of St. Mihiel is a shorter notch carrying 
a road from Apremont in the Woevre lowland to the Meuse 
valley, known as the "defile of Marbotte or St. Agnant," from 
villages in the depression. Just south of it a third and still 
shorter notch, the "defile of St. Julien or Boncourt," is tra- 
versed by a road and by the narrow-gauge railway which skirts 
the base of the scarp all the way northward to beyond the 
Verdun district. To stop these two gaps Fort Liouville was 
placed on the crest of the scarp between them, its guns com- 
manding both the depressions and the approaches to them. 
A few miles to the southeast the shortest notch of all, the 
"defile of Cormeville," carries another road through the scarp. 
Fort Gironville on the crest of the upland (Fig. 81) between 
the defiles of St. Julien and Cormeville blocks both of them, as 
well as the national highway leading directly across the upland 
to Commercy. The longer "defile of Trondes," next to the 
south, is defended by forts on either side, while the remarkable 
"gap of Toul" (Fig. 92), through which the Moselle River quite 
certainly flowed 10 to join the Meuse before it was captured and 
turned northeast to its present course (Fig. 91), is ringed about 
with a formidable series of defensive works, including a line of 
forts on the crest of the main scarp. A whole series of important 
railways, roads, and canals converge upon this broadest and 
most important of all the breaches in the outer rim of the Meuse 
plateau. Farther south there are several other gaps, but they 
lie beyond the limit of our present field of study. 

10 W. M. Davis: The Seine, the Meuse, and the Moselle, in his "Geographical 
Essays," Boston, 1909, pp. 587-616. 



3 6o 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 



x a 




MEUSE PLATEAU 361 

It is evident that the Commercy curtain is a naturally weak 
sector of the Meuse plateau defenses. But, while an enemy 
might be tempted to assail this part of the scarp, it is strongly 
protected by the projecting Hattonchatel bastion on the north 
and by the Toul bastion (Figs. 88 and 91, and PI. VI) on the south. 
Moreover, as we have just seen, the several defiles and their 
approaches "are commanded by forts and batteries which stand 
forth in their brutal majesty or sullenly conceal themselves in the 
midst of the forest." 11 In front of the Scarpa series of lakes 
and the marshy Foret de la Reine (Queen's Forest) offer good 
defensive positions on the plain. 

A further element of strength is found in the outlying ridge 
and butte of Le Mont and Mont Sec (Fig. 93 and PI. VI) 
near Apremont, erosion remnants of the plateau which manifest 
the same northeast-southwest alignment characteristic of most of 
the ravines, valleys, and ridges of the vicinity, including the 
three northern defiles and the Rupt de Mad valley in the 
Woevre plain. The possessor of Mont Sec and Le Mont enjoys 
exceptional command of the adjacent plain (PI. IX, A) and is 
sure of effective control of artillery fire on the approaches to the 
Commercy curtain. North of Verdun, in the region between 
Ornes and Damvillers, there are several additional outlying 
buttes, of much value as advanced strongholds and observa- 
tion posts before the main escarpment. The double-crested 
butte near Ornes called Les Jumelles is significant not merely 
as to form, justifying the translation "The Twins," but to the 
military geographer its value for observation suggests another 
meaning of this French word, "The Field Glasses." It is in 
the Toul sector, however, that the military value of the erosion 
buttes is most fully utilized. Mont St. Michel stands two miles 
in front of the main escarpment and is crowned by a powerful 
fortress which commands the marshy plain of the Woevre in every 
direction. Its guns dominate a long sweep of the Moselle River 
and the roads, railways, and canals converging on the Toul gap. 
West of it is a smaller butte, fully prepared for the installation of 

11 Bertrand Auerbach: Le plateau lorrain: Essai de geographie regionale, Paris, 
1893, P- 129. 



362 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 




MEUSE PLATEAU 363 

artillery in case of attack. Thus are the outlying plateau remnants 
incorporated as a vital part of the formidable defensive system con- 
stituting the main southern buttress of the fortified line of the 
Meuse. Even where not crowned in advance by permanent defen- 
sive works, it would be difficult to overestimate the possible value 
of these islands of high, dry land standing forth in the low, wet 
plain. 

The greater ease of communication through the narrowed 
and trenched plateau in the vicinity of the Commercy curtain 
gives to that region an unusual importance. Not only do roads 
converge on the defiles from distant localities, but life in the 
valley is more active, villages are more numerous, and industries 
more prosperous. Among the latter the quarrying of building 
stone from the limestone formation is important, and quarries 
and caverns, old and new, honeycomb the hills, offering excel- 
lent artillery positions and underground shelters from enemy 
bombardments. In a meander spur near St. Mihiel are grottoes 
in which primitive man sought refuge, while the ruins of an 
ancient Roman camp further attest the early military importance 
of the spot. A modern fort on the same site commands the 
river trench for some distance to the north and south. 

The Valley of the Meuse 

For much of its course across the Verdun battlefield the 
forested Meuse plateau is split lengthwise by the Meuse valley 
(Fig. 79). This natural trench is a remarkable topographic 
feature, maintaining a straight southeast-to-northwest general 
course parallel to the strongly developed belts of the terrain, 
yet showing in detail a series of serpentine curves. That the 
present Meuse River did not carve the valley would seem to 
be indicated by the fact that its curves are of a much smaller 
pattern, utterly out of harmony with the grand meanders of 
the gorge (Fig. 94). Evidently the gorge was carved while the 
Moselle River still flowed into the Meuse through the Toul gap, 
and the combined volume of the two made a single large river 
swinging in majestic curves and incising its meanders into the 



364 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 




upland surface. Later 
capture of the Moselle 
left the shrunken Meuse 
to wander distractedly 
along the valley floor, its 
small meanders and 
branching channels 
threading the meadows 
and marshes without 
definite intention and 
betraying a stream ill 
adapted to the trench in 
which it finds itself. 

We noted that the 
meanders of the Somme 
occasionally had some 
tactical value (p. 148). 
The greater meanders of 
the Meuse gorge form an 
important element in the 
natural defenses of the 
Battlefield of Verdun. 
Since the general direc- 
tion of the valley is 
southeast-northwest, the 
axes of the meanders, 
and hence of the ridge 
spurs around which they 
curve, trend southwest- 
northeast, or across the 
grain of the country. 
Conformable to a law of 
river erosion, the up- 
stream side of each ridge 
is the steeper and the 
downstream side a 



MEUSE PLATEAU 365 

smoother, more gentle slope. Hence an enemy entering the 
Meuse gateway at Dun-sur-Meuse and endeavoring to advance 
up the valley toward Verdun would find himself confronted by a 
series of ridge spurs projecting into the valley, first from one side, 
then from the other (Figs. 94 and 84), each overlapping and inter- 
locking with its neighbors and each opposing to him a natural gla- 
cis swept by the fire of defenders concealed on the steeper back- 
slope. The spurs, like the valley walls, are deforested and planted 
with vineyards or orchards which afford little cover, or have 
open, cultivated fields across which the attacking columns must 
advance without protection. Thus is the apparent value of 
the Meuse trench as a pathway along the plateau denied by 
the excellence of its natural defenses. Only when already held 
by an army can its value for transport be realized; then the 
interlocking spurs, preventing distant views along the trench 
and hence reducing interference from enemy artillery to a 
minimum, make it safer than the ordinary valley subject to 
long range domination from some commanding viewpoint. 
The Cote de l'Oie (Fig. 94), at the western end of which is the 
famous Mort Homme, or Dead Man's Hill, and the Cote de Talou 
are examples of the asymmetrical meander spurs which defied 
the massed strength of the German army and helped trans- 
form one of the greatest German offensives into a bloody 
disaster. 

The ridges of the type just mentioned are supplemented and 
strengthened by ridges of a wholly different origin. Tributary 
streams, gnawing back into the upland from either side of the 
main river, have excavated fairly straight lateral ravines sepa- 
rated by ridges trending, like the meander spurs, at right angles 
to the general course of the valley. The parallel lateral ridges 
are so many defensive walls, each fronted by its ravine moat, 
barring the path of an enemy advancing along the length of 
the valley. To overcome one of them would be a difficult 
but feasible task; to overcome a whole series of them in succes- 
sion is a task of stupendous magnitude, when the army of 
defense is properly directed. It was on the asymmetrical 



366 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 



meander spurs and their associated parallel ridges that the 
forts of Verdun, on both sides of the river north and south 
of the city, were aligned. The C6te du Poivre (Pepper Ridge), 
C6te de Froide Terre, and Douaumont ridge are among the 
ridges of the second type which were mainly concerned in 
halting the colossal German drive of 1916. 

A peculiar feature of the parallel ridges, resulting from the 
failure of the side ravines to cut clear through the plateau, 
deserves special notice. Where ravines from the Woevre low- 
land head against but do not quite 
meet ravines from the Meuse val- 
ley, the remaining upland ridges 
have the form of a letter H lying 
horizontally, thus: HI . Additional 
cases of the same form in succes- 
sion give the appearance indicated 
in Figure 95. This is the condition 
found east of Verdun, where it im- 
posed special tactical conditions 
upon the military operations. The 
Germans in seeking to gain the 
plateau crest at successive points 
endeavored to push up the ravine 
between the legs of the H, then to 
advance over the crossbar to the 
next ridge. As the crossbars were 
the bridges which alone made a southward advance possible with- 
out descent into the ravine-moat, and as the possessor of them 
could enfilade the ravines on either side and so take in the rear 
important enemy positions, they were most bitterly defended and 
attacked. The little village of Fleury, standing on the crossbar 
connecting the Cote St. Michel-Fort Vaux ridge with the Froide 
Terre-Fort Douaumont ridge, was one of the few towns which in 
the course of the World War was literally pulverized and blown 
off the face of the earth by long-continued, concentrated artillery 
fire (Fig. 96). 




Fig. 95— Cross ridges and con- 
necting "bridges" (Fleury, Tavan- 
nes), forming series of horizontal 
letter H's, upon which the eastern 
defenses of Verdun were based. 
Stars show principal forts. The 
actual topography is more complex, 
the diagram being simplified to em- 
phasize the essential elements of the 
terrain. 



MEUSE PLATEAU 367 

The Meuse River 

The Meuse River itself is an obstacle of no mean proportions 
under certain circumstances. Its meandering course and 
branching channels repeatedly interpose an unfordable current 
before an enemy fighting his way along the valley and unable 
to follow a single highway or to keep to one side of the valley 
only. The river's upper branches drain the impervious clays 
and marls coming up from beneath the limestone formation 
and hence discharge great volumes of flood waters down the 
valley in time of heavy rains or melting snows (Fig. 97). So faint 
is the slope of the valley floor that the floods pass off but slowly, 
sometimes lasting for several weeks. As the valley is not wide, 
even a small flood may cover all its floor; when the ground is 
saturated in winter every light rain is sufficient to swell the 
river's volume. The valley is therefore often inundated, and 
the floods are a matter of practical military importance. The 
German assaults on Verdun were greatly hampered by the 
fact that the Meuse, swollen by winter floods, separated the 
two wings of the attacking armies and prevented their efficient 
co-operation. Even when free of floods, the valley floor, be- 
tween one thousand and two thousand yards wide, sometimes 
marshy but usually covered with open meadows, is an obstacle 
difficult to cross under enemy fire. Taken all in all, the character 
of the river itself, the form of its valley, and the disposition of 
its lateral ravines and ridges make of the Meuse an imposing 
system of defenses rather than an easy route of invasion. 

It was the defensive value of the Meuse trench which led 
the French to place a number of forts linking Verdun with 
Toul along the river, instead of along the crest of the plateau 
farther east. There the thick woods would make it impossible 
for the different forts to support each other effectively in case 
of attack, whereas the cleared walls and floor of the river trench 
would expose all the terrain between each pair of forts to the 
fire of one or both of them. Thus the three forts of Genicourt, 
Troyon, and Camp des Romains dominate all of the Meuse 
trench from Verdun to south of St. Mihiel, as well as the principal 



3 68 



BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 




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WOEVRE LOWLAND 369 

exits from the forest on the east. The danger due to the near- 
ness of the forest cover to the forts is in a measure counteracted 
by special methods of constructing the defensive works and 
of placing the guns. It was against this barrier, first in the 
vicinity of Forts Troyon and Genicourt, then at Fort Camp 
des Romains, that the Germans in 1914 twice tried in vain to 
breach the Meuse barrier. 

In the immediate vicinity of Verdun the barren ridges, inter- 
locking monotonously to give a sky line devoid of any irregularity, 
form a dreary and repellant landscape. To one standing on 
the meander spur bearing Fort Marre and looking northward, 
the Cote de 1'Oie on the left and the Cote de Talou on the 
right seem almost to merge in one, and the valley below dis- 
appears into the plateau wall as if by magic (Fig. 87). Or if 
the eyes be turned northwest, the successive ridges blend like 
gray waves into an even horizon, above which Montfaucon 
rises miles away, at this distance looking like a low mound 
which modestly conceals its dominating importance (Fig. 86). 
Seen from Fort Souville the famous Douaumont ridge just in 
front can none too easily be distinguished from the Louvemont 
ridge beyond, although the mound of the fort swells noticeably 
against the horizon (Fig. 96). Barren of trees, devoid of topo- 
graphic variety, shell-torn and silent, the sinister landscape 
of Verdun (PI. IX, B) today deserves more than ever the oft- 
quoted description of Ardouin Dumazet: "A rather sad land- 
scape, no variation in the form of the hills, no woods, a sort of 
immense amphitheater formed by arid slopes covered with vine- 
yards and fields of grain. . . In the center of the immense 
semicircle, little Verdun sleeps about its cathedral, at the foot of 
its citadel. No military site, not even the mountain fortresses 
like Grenoble, Briancon, or Besancon, is so impressive as Verdun. 
It is formidable and appalling." 12 

THE WOEVRE LOWLAND 

No small part of the military value of the Meuse barrier 
derives from the topographic character of the Woevre lowland 

12 Ardouin Dumazet: Les grandes manoeuvres de Test en 1801, Paris, 1891. 



370 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

which it dominates. The plain of the Woevre is very broad, 
because the clay formation on which it is eroded (Fig. 78) is 
very thick, in places exceeding six hundred feet. It is difficult 
to assign a definite breadth to the Woevre, not only be- 
cause it varies from a minimum width near Toul and to the 
south to a maximum several times as great farther north, but 
also because its eastern limit grades insensibly into the rising 
limestone upland of the Moselle plateau (Fig. 79). Through- 
out much of its length, however, the lowland varies from ten 
to fifteen miles in breadth. It stretches far away to the north 
and south as a vast, monotonous expanse of level clay plain, 
the even horizon usually unbroken by anything more striking 
than occasional forest patches, or villages commonly of dimen- 
sions meriting rather the term of hamlet (Figs. 80 and 81). Only 
on the west does the view encounter the low wall of the Meuse 
plateau (Fig. 93); and there the level sky line of the plain is 
merely exchanged for the equally level plateau horizon just above. 
Eastward the land rises as the next underlying limestone forma- 
tion emerges to play its role in the topographic scheme; but the 
rise is almost imperceptible and attracts the eye only when the 
attention has first been directed to seek for it. 

It is the clay which places its ineffaceable stamp upon this 
lowland country. It holds the rainfall on the surface, necessi- 
tating extensive drainage operations, and at the same time 
furnishes the material out of which the drain tiles are made. 
In its depressions stagnate the countless shallow ponds and 
lakes, some natural, many artificial, which diversify the green 
surface with shining patches of silver when seen from the plateau 
crest. When the winter rains are heavy, it is the clay which 
turns the whole plain into a vast slough in which neither man 
nor beast can find a solid footing. And when the summer sun 
shines hot, it is the same clay which bakes to a natural brick, 
requiring five horses to the plow which the peasant farmer 
would drive through the hardened mass. 13 

Man finds on the lowland surface an indifferent place of 

M Auerbach, Le plateau lorrain, p. 145. 



WOEVRE LOWLAND 



37i 



abode. The stagnant waters breed fever in the land, the labor 
of drainage is a heavy burden, the soil despite broad areas of 
-loam usually requires enrichment, stone for purposes of con- 
struction is lacking, roads are bad, and material for their im- 
provement is far to seek. By dint of unremitting toil the better 
lands are made to yield harvests, especially of cereals, while 




Fig. 97 — Flooded valley of the Meuse River in the Meuse plateau. The frequent 
inundations to which the river is subject seriously hampered the German military 
operations during the Battle of Verdun. (French official photograph.) 



the outcrops of purer clays remain covered with forests. But 
just as in early days the plain of the Woevre remained long an 
uninhabited wilderness of marsh and woodland, while man 
colonized Mont Sec (Dry Mountain) and other islands of dry 
land or sought the warmer slopes of the Cotes de Meuse, so 
today the higher lands beckon alluringly to the toiler in the 
clay lowland, and villages crowd each other along the slopes of 
the plateau scarp, while for the most part mere hamlets dot the 
surface of the more sparsely inhabited plain. 



372 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

As on other low clay plains, the rivers are obstacles, especially 
in time of heavy rains. Under ordinary conditions they wander 
sluggishly among marshes and bogs, bordered by reeds and* 
willows. But heavy rains, denied escape underground because 
of the imperviousness of the clay, flow over the surface to swell 
the streams with a rapid increase of volume which their channels 
cannot contain. Then the flood waters spread far and wide, 
and large areas become impassable. The Orne receives such 
abundant contributions from the Woevre that its level often 
rises ten feet cr more above low water, and other streams have 
a similar unstable regime. 

For a hostile army to maneuver on the clay plain is of itself 
a difficult task, especially when the surface is soft with winter 
rains. To force a path across it in the face of a determined 
enemy skillfully utilizing rivers, lakes, and forests as defensive 
barriers is a task of more serious proportions. But to use it 
as a base of operations against the formidable plateau strong- 
hold to the west, to break the preliminary defenses of fortified 
lake and forest masses, like that of the Forlt de la Reine in 
front of the Commercy curtain, to maneuver with every day- 
light movement open to enemy observation, to advance along 
roads accurately registered for enemy fire, and to assault the 
heights under a hurricane of steel accurately directed from 
above — this is a task demanding almost superhuman power. 

THE MOSELLE PLATEAU AND SEILLE LOWLAND 

In a later chapter the features of the Moselle plateau and 
Seille lowland will be studied in connection with the military 
operations primarily based upon them. The fighting in the 
Battlefield of Verdun touched only the western slope of the 
Moselle cuesta, and it will suffice for the moment to state quite 
briefly the salient features of its topography. 

From under the thick clays and marls worn down to form 
the Woevre lowland a more resistant limestone formation rises 
gradually to give the gentle western slope of the asymmetrical 
Moselle plateau (Fig. 78). Much of the Woevre lowland drains 



MOSELLE PLATEAU-SEILLE LOWLAND 373 

northeastward to the Moselle River by means of tributary 
streams like the Rupt de Mad and Orne cutting obliquely through 
the rising upland to reach the Moselle trench (Fig. 79). Since 
these tributary rivers grow constantly deeper at the same time 
that the plateau is continuously rising, the relief becomes bolder 
and the scenery more imposing, until on the crest of the Moselle 
gorge one sees the river flowing more than 600 feet below him. 

The Haye Region 

The higher, more dissected eastern portion of the Moselle 
plateau is quite generally forested; although only at the south, 
where we find the great Forest of Haye on the broad upland 
east of Toul, are the wooded areas nearly so extensive as on 
the plateau of the Meuse. All of the southern portion of the 
Moselle plateau west of the Moselle River, including not only 
the Forest of Haye but extending northward to the vicinity 
of the Rupt de Mad, is known to the French as the Haye region. 
It is a dry land in which the streams sink deep into the fissured 
limestone, occasionally disappearing into underground channels; 
a rugged land in part, where different layers of the limestone 
formation terrace the surface or where stream erosion and 
solution have gashed chasms and ravines in the sides of hills; 
yet to some extent a cultivated land, for a surface coating of 
whitish loam yields fair crops of oats and wheat. Quarries 
are numerous, especially along the Moselle valley, because cer- 
tain layers of the limestone furnish excellent material for build- 
ing, paving, and other purposes. Yet neither agriculture nor in- 
dustry have wholly tamed the Haye, and it remains a region 
difficult for an army to traverse. 

With the Moselle trench and the bridgehead of the Grand 
Couronne terminating eastward in the steep scarp of the 
Cotes de Moselle (Fig. 78), the Moselle plateau presents an 
almost insuperable obstacle to an enemy advance westward 
from the Seille lowland on the east. Only the fact that the 
German frontier lay close in front of the barrier south of Pont- 
a-Mousson and actually breached it to the north of this point, 



374 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

added to the fear that Germany might regard the fortifica- 
tion of the obstacle as an unfriendly act, prevented the French 
from establishing an elaborate system of defensive works on 
the exceptionally favorable terrain. Steps were, in fact, being 
taken for the fortification of the Nancy portion of the plateau, 
where only one or two forts existed previously, when the World 
War broke out. Against a hostile advance from the west the 
plateau presented a long natural glacis, backed by a deep 
trench and behind that a steep-faced wall, all of which the 
Germans strongly fortified in the vicinity of Metz. 

When American troops first took over a sector of the European 
battle front, it was across the sloping western side of the Moselle 
plateau in the Haye region and the wet plain of the Woevre, 
between Pont-a-Mousson in the Moselle trench and Apremont 
at the base of the Meuse escarpment, that they confronted 
the enemy. That they were in the Haye they could not well 
forget, for the names of villages close to the front constantly 
reminded them of the fact by the frequent recurrence of the 
termination "-en-Haye:" Domevre-en-Haye, Villers-en-Haye, 
Fey-en-Haye, Regnieville-en-Haye, Vieville-en-Haye. Through 
the western, or Woevre, end of their front passed the Rupt de 
Mad, which flows northeastward across the open, marshy plain 
with sluggish mien until the western edge of the limestone plateau 
is reached. Here, a few miles above Thiaucourt, the stream 
quickens its gait and goes swirling down through a winding 
limestone gorge which, ever deepening as the plateau rises, 
only ends when it opens into the Moselle trench as a narrow 
valley cut 600 feet deep into the plateau. The Rupt de Mad 
gorge was to the Allies a barrier against a northwestward ad- 
vance and for the Germans a valuable corridor carrying railway 
and highway from the entrenched camp of Metz through the 
plateau to the margin of the Woevre at Thiaucourt. 

The Briey Plateau 

Beyond the gorge, to the north, the asymmetrical Moselle up- 
land takes on a new aspect. At first the country is more open, 



MOSELLE PLATEAU-SEILLE LOWLAND 375 

forest patches are restricted to smaller limits, and the soil seems 
to yield more readily to the labors of man. Careful examination 
will show that a layer of marl mantles the more resistant lime- 
stone over much of the region. But it could hardly be called 
an agricultural country, and its productivity is not sufficient 
to make it a rich military prize, like the fertile plain of the 
Somme. Topographic forms are much the same as in the 
Haye: the same sloping plateau trenched by streams which 
begin in shallow ravines on the west to end in deep canyons 
at the east; the same steep valley walls or hill slopes gashed 
here and there by the narrow clefts or larger chasms typical 
of limestone countries; the same abundance of quarries, especially 
along the Moselle. But certain features make it a region apart, 
among them a series of southwest-northeast faults, or breaks 
in the earth's crust, which reveal themselves by a somewhat 
larger number of ravines and ridges taking that course than 
in the Haye; by a series of spring lines where waters from 
underground sources escape to the surface; and occasionally 
by bringing to the surface and rendering more accessible certain 
valuable mineral deposits. It is these deposits, consisting of 
beds of iron ore in the plateau rocks, increasing in importance 
around Briey and farther to the north, which give the region 
its strongest stamp of individuality. Here the landscape takes 
on an industrial aspect; mines, furnaces, and smelters dot the 
countryside, factories crowd into the towns, foreign laborers 
replace the French peasants, and the sleepy plateau awakens 
with the pulse of a new life. This is the great mineral region 
of Briey, containing one of the richest iron ore deposits in the 
world. From it France has for some time derived nine-tenths 
of her iron. The region gives its name to a large portion of 
the Moselle plateau north of the Haye, and makes the "Briey 
plateau" a military prize of the very highest importance. That 
Germany would instantly strike to seize it in case of war could 
not reasonably be doubted. 

We have seen that the Champagne, Argonne, Barrois, and 
Meuse cuesta scarps all trend from southeast to northwest 



376 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

across the Battlefield of Verdun. The Moselle cuesta at first 
trends almost due north, until it is a score of miles beyond 
the town of Briey; then, as if just discovering it was getting 
lost from the procession, it turns sharply west to resume its 
place in line parallel with its neighbors. Just north of it is 
the Sedan lowland or corridor, already referred to (p. 327), 
which is the equivalent of the Seille lowland. As in the south 
rivers like the Ache, Rupt de Mad, and Orne rise in the Woevre 
lowland and flow obliquely northeast through the rising plateau 
to the Moselle trench or to the continuation of the Seille low- 
land, so in the northern section the Loison and Othain rise in 
the Woevre and flow obliquely northwest through the rising 
plateau to the Sedan lowland, joining on the way the Chiers 
River, which gathers their waters and those of the Crusnes 
(in the plateau) into a single current uniting with the Meuse 
near Sedan. The fact that each of these rivers is parallel with 
the Meuse plateau scarp for much of its course gives them 
special value as advanced defensive positions in front of the 
main Meuse line. The Chiers curiously enough rises in the 
Sedan lowland north of the plateau scarp, flows into the plateau 
through a gateway carrying a railroad and guarded by the old 
fortress of Longwy, only to turn westward through the plateau 
past Montmedy and flow out again into the Sedan lowland below 
the junction of the Loison. It was at Longwy, the "Iron Gate of 
France," perched picturesquely on a cliff-rimmed spur of the 
plateau and dominating a vast stretch of country to the north 
and east, that the Germans first knocked with peremptory 
demands for the surrender of the fort when they attacked the 
outlying defenses of Verdun early in August, 1914, just as more 
than a hundred years before the first blows of the invader had 
fallen upon this same strategic point. 

Still farther to the north lies the massive wooded barrier 
of the Ardennes, trenched by the wonderful serpentine gorge 
of the Semois River. The latter is also roughly parallel to the 
plateau and lowland belts and therefore to be considered in 
connection with them as a part of the outlying natural defenses 
of the Battlefield of Verdun. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF 
VERDUN 

The Battle of the Frontier 

Early in August, 1914, after a series of encounters between 
patrols of enemy and Allied troops, considerable forces of the 
German Crown Prince's Fifth Army, directed against Verdun, 
advanced to the north-facing scarp of the Moselle plateau and 
vainly summoned the defenders of the Longwy gateway to sur- 
render. Part of these forces pushed south over the plateau into 
the Woevre lowland, where they encountered French advance 
guards on the line of the Loison at Mangiennes. A brisk engage- 
ment ensued, and the Germans were thrown back over the 
Othain. French mobilization being now completed and the 
necessity of meeting a strong German advance through Belgium 
becoming more and more apparent, the French Fourth Army 
under De Langle de Cary (Army of Sedan) was by the middle 
of August thrown forward upon the Ardennes upland north of 
the serpentine gorge of the Semois, the Third Army under Ruffey 
(Army of the Northern Woevre) on its right extending from the 
vicinity of the Semois southeastward across the Moselle plateau 
to skirt its western base as far south as Conflans, where its right 
rested on the Orne River. The forts of Metz on the crest of the 
plateau east of Conflans denied the French a good topographic 
position in that sector; the valuable mineral fields of the Briey 
region were held by strong enemy forces; the crest about Longwy 
was already in the hands of enemy troops, and the fortress itself 
was invested ; while De Langle's Fourth Army stood on a fairly 
open upland with a river gorge at its back. For one reason or 
another neither the Third nor Fourth French Armies occupied a 
strong defensive position when the Battle of the Frontier wa' 
engaged. 



378 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

To the west the French Fifth Army under Lanrezac (Army of 
the Sambre and Meuse) took up a defensive position in the 
Ardennes behind the deep gorge of the Meuse from the Givet* 
fortress northward to Namur,* thence westward behind the Sam- 
bre gorge to the vicinity of Thuin, beyond Charleroi;* while farther 
westward the British army continued the front behind the Haine 
River and the Mons-Conde Canal which runs through its broadly 
open valley. Despite a weak link where the front crossed from 
the Sambre near Thuin to the canal east of Mons,* this advanced 
position was in many respects exceedingly strong; and since the 
result of the preliminary battle for possession of the Meuse-Sam- 
bre front directly affected events on the Verdun battlefield to the 
southeast, a further word concerning the terrain may not be 
amiss. "In this portion of its course the Sambre is a strongly 
meandering river which follows a winding trench cut three 
hundred feet or more below the upland surface. The flat floor of 
the trench is five or six hundred yards in breadth, and covered 
with open meadows. As a rule the southern wall of the trench is 
steep and forested. An enemy advancing from the north would 
find it difficult to cross the exposed meadows, bridge the river, 
and dislodge the defenders from the wooded heights beyond." 
The main gorge of the Meuse between Givet and Namur is even 
more formidable. "Less strongly winding than the Sambre, it is 
cut deeper below the Ardennes upland and has steeper walls. 
The river is deeper and broader, and practically fills the bottom 
of the trench. Precipitous cliffs of bare rock rise in places several 
hundred feet from the water's edge. Where the slope is less steep, 
the walls are (usually) heavily forested." 1 

This position not only blocked the highly important Meuse- 
Sambre route through the Ardennes into France, but it also 
flanked the route of the main German advance over the Belgian 
plain farther north, compelling the invaders to turn and fight 
on a line selected by the defenders. But it possessed one marked 

* Givet is 25, Namur 50 miles N of Mezieres. Charleroi is 19, Mons 41 miles W 
of Namur. Cf. Fig. 55- 

iD. W. Johnson: Topography and Strategy in the War, New York, 1917, p. 27. 



BATTLE OF THE FRONTIER 379 

element of weakness. The junction of the Meuse gorge with the 
Sambre gorge makes a little less than a right angle, with the result 
that Lanrezac's Fifth Army occupied a dangerous salient. The 
apex of the salient being the junction of two principal natural 
pathways through the mountains, it was the locus not only of an 
important town but also of the most valuable crossings over the 
two rivers. Thus the strategic value of Namur was very great, 
and for its protection there had been constructed a ring of con- 
crete forts. It was believed that much of the weakness of the 
salient was offset by the strength of its apex, which apparently 
furnished a solid support for the right wing of the main Franco- 
British front facing north along the Sambre gorge-Mons canal 
line, as well as for the subsidiary French front along the Meuse 
line connecting (but imperfectly) with the Fourth Army in front 
of the Semois gorge. 

It is evident that while the Allied center, consisting of the 
French Third and Fourth Armies, was placed on the margin of 
the Verdun battlefield in a position poorly adapted to withstand a 
heavy enemy attack, as has already been shown, the Allied left 
wing, composed of the French Fifth and the British Armies, held 
a strong defensive position. This was not inconsistent with the 
plan of General Joffre that his center and left should now (August 
21) pass to the offensive, the center to attack at once, the left to 
remain on the defensive temporarily until the success of the cen- 
ter's offensive was assured. The French Third Army began its 
sweep up the backslope of the Moselle plateau with great elan, 
only to be checked and later thrown back by well-directed 
enemy fire fromartillery concealed in forest and ravine, and which 
the French could not locate in the thick mist prevailing during the 
attack. The offensive of the Fourth Army was even more effect- 
ively halted. Instead of awaiting an enemy attack in a carefully 
selected and strongly organized position, these forces were 
advanced far into the difficult terrain of the Ardennes Moun- 
tains, a rolling upland -partly cleared in some places, densely 
wooded in others, and trenched by the deep gorges of many 
streams. Here the Germans had quickly and skillfully established 



380 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

strong lines in front of the principal strategic points, defended by 
barbed wire entanglements and deep trenches. Reconnaissance 
of the wooded and dissected country was difficult, and not even 
the air scouts were able properly to locate the enemy defenses 
and forces. French columns in full march were overwhelmed and 
routed, others attacking hidden barriers were ruthlessly slaugh- 
tered, others fled precipitately. The Fourth Army, definitely 
defeated, fell back behind the Semois, and the engagement, 
sometimes called the Battle of the Semois, registered a victory for 
the enemy which had easily crushed an imprudently conducted 
advance into a formidable terrain. 

Meanwhile the forces farther west were not only unable to 
initiate their offensive, given the failure of the center to advance, 
but were being desperately put to it to hold their defensive 
positions. As early as August 15 German forces were assailing 
the Meuse barrier near Dinant, 15 miles south of Namur. A first 
attempt to cross at Bouvignes north of Dinant was repulsed, 
likewise a second attempt still farther north. Late in the after- 
noon a stronger effort near Dinant itself was temporarily suc- 
cessful, but the enemy was soon thrown back in disorder, losing 
large numbers in the swift current of the treacherous stream. 2 
A week later, on the day following the initiation of the 
French center's unsuccessful offensive, the enemy succeeded in 
forcing the Meuse barrier south of Namur and in widening the 
gap by pushing southward along the west bank toward Dinant. 
Another crossing south of Dinant placed the enemy well in the 
rear of the Allied line along the Sambre gorge and the Mons- 
Conde Canal. The Namur forts were already melting under a 
hurricane of high explosives, and in an incredibly short time the 
supposedly strong apex of the dangerous salient was in ruins 
and the Germans were pouring over the crossings to aid in out- 
flanking the rest of the defensive position. 

This position had, however, already become untenable. In 
the desperate battles raging for the passages of the Sambre 
gorge farther west, during the course of which Charleroi changed 

2 Pierre Dauzet: De Liege a la Marne, Paris, 1917, P- 29. 



BATTLE OF THE FRONTIER 381 

hands no less than five times, the enormous numerical superiority 
of the enemy was beginning to tell, and the French Fifth Army 
was losing its grip on the natural trench. Along the Mons-Conde 
Canal the British had found it impossible to maintain their bridge- 
heads north of the barrier against the increasing enemy pressure 
and so withdrew to the south side, destroying the bridges behind 
them. At Mons the canal makes a loop convex to the north, 
creating a dangerous tactical salient like the famous Tervaete 
bend on the Yser barrier (p. 57). When the danger here was 
increased by an outflanking move of the enemy farther east, 
where he was forcing the weak sector connecting the Sambre 
and the canal barriers, preparations were made for the possible 
abandonment of the salient. But, before the situation at this 
point became critical, the British Commander-in-Chief received 
from General Joffre the astounding news that the French Fifth 
Army on his right was in retreat, having lost the Sambre posi- 
tion; that overwhelming German forces were massing in his 
front; and that his left was threatened with a dangerous envel- 
oping movement by the enemy. It was only too true that, the 
Namur fortress ring having fallen, the Sambre crossings having 
been forced, and the enemy having crossed the Meuse gorge far in 
the rear, the French Fifth Army was rapidly being flanked out of 
its entire defensive system. The battle of the northeastern frontier 
had been lost all along the line, and the heartbreaking retreat 
was already under way. The British and French Fifth Armies 
fell back by stages to the line of the Oise, as detailed in Chapter 
IV. De Langle de Cary's Fourth Army, its left wing in the air 
as a result of the Fifth Army's failure to hold its Sambre-Meuse 
defensive position, continued its retreat from south of the Semois 
barrier to the Chiers-Meuse line in the Sedan lowland and 
later entirely behind the line of the Meuse. The Third Army 
fell back behind the line of the Othain River, from Montmedy 
to Spincourt, where the enemy pursuit was halted and a decided 
reverse inflicted upon him. But the retirement of the Fourth 
Army behind the Meuse barrier compelled the Third Army to 
continue its retreat until it also stood behind the same obstacle. 



382 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

On August 28 the enemy assaulted the Meuse barrier on a 
front of 40 miles from west of Mezieres past Sedan and Stenay 
to the vicinity of Dun. For two days a violent struggle raged 
all along the line, German forces crossing at certain points only 
to be hurled back, failing completely in attempts to pass the 
obstacle at others, and maintaining with great difficulty precari- 
ous footholds on the southwestern bank at still others. At Cesse, 
close to Stenay, the invaders were thrown back over the river 
at the point of the bayonet, while near Dun an enemy regiment 
seeking to force the well-defended natural trench was almost 
completely annihilated. 3 Fierce combats at Donchery, Marfee 
Woods, Angecourt, Yoncq, Beaumont, and Jaulnay Wood were 
well sustained by the French. When General de Langle de Cary 
received Joffre's order for the retreat southward which prepared 
the stage for the Battle of the Marne, he was reluctant to forsake 
the strong defensive line which his troops had held so effectively, 
and asked leave to stand his ground. The reply was a permission 
to hold the barrier for another day, to complete the success 
gained and to demonstrate that the retreat was strategic and 
not forced ; but also an insistence that retirement must then take 
place, and the line of the Meuse north of the entrenched camp 
of Verdun thus be sacrificed in conformity with the new plan 
of campaign. 

The Battle of the Marne 

The retreat to the Marne had its eastern pivot on the massive 
Verdun buttress, which we have found was so fashioned by 
Nature as to be almost impregnable from whatever direction 
assailed. The French Third and Fourth Armies in swinging 
back from the Meuse trench toward the southwest, then the 
south, and finally the southeast, like a spoke in a slowly turning 
wheel the axle of which was at Verdun, first found their combined 
front parallel to the successive topographic belts of the Verdun 
battlefield. The generalissimo's "Instruction G6nerale" of 
August 25 having prescribed that "the movement will be covered 

3 Dauzet, De Liege a. la Marne, p. 70. 



BATTLE OF THE MARNE 383 

by rearguards left behind favorable depressions of the terrain, 
in such manner as to utilize every obstacle to arrest . . . the 
enemy's march or at least to retard it," good use was made of 
these natural barriers in holding the enemy in check and assuring 
an orderly retirement of the Allied forces to the line selected by 
Joffre as the basis of a new operation. Along the northwestern 
extension of the Meuse and Argonne plateaus, where they 
appear to overlap in a single upland having but one strong 
northeast-facing scarp, well clothed with forest, very important 
fighting occurred in the Signy l'Abbaye-Launois region 13 miles 
southwest of Mezieres, in the last days of September, "zouaves, 
colonial troops, and native sharpshooters making marvelous use 
of the terrain." The Fourth Army held the Aisne-Argonne 
defenses from Attigny to Grandpre for a brief period. As the 
retreat continued, the front crossed the grain of the terrain at a 
marked angle, and only the minor east-west valleys and ridges, or 
sections of larger valleys, could be employed for defensive 
purposes. Foch's Ninth Army, put into line to fill a gap formed 
between the Fourth Army retreating southward and the Fifth 
Army withdrawing more toward the southwest, fought a brilliant 
action between Faux and Bertoncourt, along a low east- west ridge 
just north of the Attigny-Rethel sector of the River Aisne, then 
fell back south behind that part of the Aisne barrier. Farther 
east the Third Army, standing on the strong terrain domin- 
ated by the butte of Montfaucon, successfully repelled violent 
enemy assaults before resuming its retirement. Both the 
Third and Fourth Armies continued the retreat southward 
along the cleared lowlands between the forested plateaus, the 
Third Army utilizing the Aire lowland, the Fourth Army that 
of the Aisne. 

When the order was received to cease retiring and pass to the 
offensive, the Third Army stretched obliquely across the Barrois 
plateau from the western exit of the Ornain gateway at Revigny 
to the eastern crest of the sloping upland near the minor gateway 
at Souilly, whence the mobile forces of the Verdun camp con- 
tinued the front northward for some distance along the crest 



384 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

of the Barrois plateau scarp. It thus faced roughly west, 
toward the Triaucourt gateway around the southern end of the 
Argonne plateau, the lake-forest-hill country of the Little 
Argonnes just to the south, and the Revigny gateway between 
these hills and the forested heights south of Sermaize. If it 
should debouch westward through the gateways into the south- 
ward continuation of the Aisne lowland, it would take in the 
flank the German forces pushing southward along that lowland to 
attack the Fourth Army. This latter body of troops was facing 
nearly north, in a strong position behind the transverse barrier 
formed by the interlacing channels of the Saulx and Ornain 
Rivers, the Marne-Rhine Canal, and their adjacent meadows 
and marshes, backed by the forested heights of Sermaize. 

General Joffre's orders to the Third and Fourth Armies for 
the Marne offensive directed that the Third Army, now under 
General Sarrail, should "debouch toward the west to attack the 
left flank of enemy forces marching west of the Argonne." 
Thus the favorable situation offered south of the Argonne 
barrier for a flank attack upon the southward-marching Germans 
was to be exploited. At the same time the Fourth Army was 
to engage the enemy in front. As we have previously noted in 
the more general account of the Battle of the Marne (p. 269), 
both the Third and Fourth Armies were compelled to support 
repeated enemy assaults of extreme violence and could develop 
their own offensive but slowly. Ground was lost at Revigny on 
the first day of the battle, although at the same time the French 
forces holding the crest of the Barrois plateau north of 
Souilly were able from their favorable position to push south- 
west down the backslope some distance and threaten the 
flank of the Crown Prince's forces, which were trying to drive 
southeastward and isolate Verdun. 

On the second day of the battle the German threat to complete 
the isolation of Verdun by an attack from the east began to 
develop. To the north and east of Verdun there was no French 
army standing in front of the entrenched camp to defend it. 
The Third Army was on the west, but the Second Army, as we 



BATTLE OF THE MARNE 385 

shall see later, was far to the southeast defending the Moselle- 
plateau, with its left near Pont-a-Mousson (Fig. 79). A gap 
of more than 60 miles was practically undefended, save for the 
great barriers erected by Nature — the exposed plain of the 
humid Woevre lowland, the imposing wall of the Cotes de Meuse, 
the wooded Meuse plateau, and the winding trench of the Meuse 
River — strengthened by the chain of fortresses guarding weak 
points and defended by the fortress garrisons and small covering 
forces. On August 7 General Sarrail learned that a serious 
enemy attempt to pierce the formidable Meuse barrier was 
under way. German forces from the entrenched camp of 
Metz crossed the Woevre lowland with the object of scaling 
the plateau, capturing one or more of the forts, and breaching 
the line of the river south of Verdun. Success in this would 
not only isolate Verdun but would take in the rear General 
Sarrail's Third Army and possibly cause the collapse of the 
whole Marne counteroffensive. 

• That day and the following, while the battle raged furiously 
all along the Third and Fourth Army fronts across the Wet 
Champagne, the Little Argonnes, and the Barrois plateau, and 
ground was being lost at one place and gained at another without 
any very significant change, Sarrail prepared to meet the eastern 
attack on the Meuse barrier. Despite his need of troops on the 
main front, he sent one or two divisions to help hold the Meuse 
line south of Verdun and ordered the bridges over the Meuse 
River destroyed. Additional troops were despatched from the 
Toul forts to assist in meeting the new menace. Already the 
Germans, finding the plateau practically unguarded, had 
reached the upland near the ravine of Les Eparges and begun 
the bombardment of Fort Troyon, north of the western exit of the 
Creue defile. Their siege guns were so effectively concealed in the 
deep, wooded ravines dissecting the upland that the guns of 
the fort had great difficulty in locating them to put them out 
of action. 4 On September 9 heavy Austrian siege artillery 
opened on another of the forts, Genicourt north of Troyon; and 

* F. E. Whitton: The Marne Campaign, London, 1017, p. 193. 



386 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

Fort Troyon itself, practically silenced, was being assaulted by 
enemy infantry. But the German forces engaged in this raid 
were fatigued by their long march across the Woevre and by. 
their uphill advance into the difficult wooded plateau country, 
and failed to press the advantages which the absence of a large 
defending army offered them. French reserves from Toul 
arriving next day helped to drive off the attackers, and, while 
the heroic garrison suffered further enemy attempts during the 
next three days, the effort to breach the Meuse barrier was for 
the moment defeated. German troops on the two sides of the 
Meuse plateau had come within less than 15 miles of meeting 
and making the isolation of Verdun complete. Had the rein- 
forcements which tardily arrived but been on the ground when 
the plateau was first approached, no such progress across the 
difficult terrain would have been effected. 

Direct attacks on the entrenched camp of Verdun, defended 
by the fortress-crowned plateau scarp and transverse spurs and 
ridges, produced little effect. Two forts (Bois Bourru and M arre) 
on the spur projecting northeastward into the first eastward 
meander of the valley north of Verdun, were heavily bombarded; 
later Fort Douaumont on the crest of the scarp overlooking the 
Woevre was attacked. But the formidable nature of the terrain 
and its military defenses discouraged any major operation directly 
against Verdun until very large forces and a crushing weight of 
artillery could be assembled for the almost superhuman task. 

Meanwhile the Third and Fourth Armies had been beating off 
a series of terrific attacks against the Saulx-Ornain-Sermaize 
heights barrier which threatened for a time to force the French 
front from the protection of this important obstacle, and had been 
worrying the Crown Prince's army by launching attacks down 
the backslope of the Barrois cuesta against his communications 
in the Aire lowland. Two offensives undertaken by the two 
opposing armies in this sector largely neutralized each other. By 
September 10 the German offensive was weakening, and the great 
retreat induced through defeat of the German right flank on the 
Marne plateau was imminent. Slowly and methodically the 



BATTLE OF THE MARNE 387 

Germans withdrew northward along the Aisne and Aire lowlands, 
yielding to the French the Triaucourt, Les Islettes, and (after 
some delay) La Chalade defiles through the Argonne barrier. The 
enemy front finally came to rest transversely across the topo- 
graphic belts of the Verdun battlefield, firmly entrenched in the 
difficult terrain of the Argonne plateau south of the Grandpre 
gateway, buttressed on the Montfaucon butte on the Barrois 
plateau which the French assailed at heavy cost without avail, 
and facing the natural and artificial defenses of Verdun in the 
Meuse plateau. The Battle of the Marne was ended. 

That this battle terminated in an Allied victory is due in no 
small measure to the topographic features of the Verdun battle- 
field. Had the Germans succeeded in any one of their efforts 
to break and roll up the front of the French Fourth Army, or to 
pierce the Third Army front and surround Verdun, or to breach 
the fortified line of the Meuse from the east, the victory gained 
on the Marne plateau might have been largely dissipated. The 
first enemy objective was defeated on the Saulx-Ornain-Ser- 
maize heights barrier. In aiming at the second the Crown 
Prince was seriously hampered by French control of the Barrois 
plateau crest trending obliquely across his flank and exposing his 
communications to enemy raids launched down thewestern slope, 
and by the fear of an enemy attack on his rear from the Verdun 
bastion. The third objective failed of achievement as soon as 
adequate forces were arrayed in defense of the naturally strong 
Meuse position. Joffre's strategy could not achieve its purpose 
if the strong buttress on which he pivoted his eastern front should 
give way. The immensely difficult terrain of the Battlefield of 
Verdun, almost impregnable against assault from any quarter, 
was equal to the demand which the generalissimo made upon it. 
Yielded in part in accordance with the larger strategic plan, it still 
remained a strong point of support when the command to pass 
to the offensive came. Projecting like a rocky peninsula into the 
gray German sea, Verdun stood unshaken while the waves of 
war lashed themselves into red foam against its flanks. The 
storm died down, and the sullen waves receded. 



388 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

The First Battle of St. Mihiel Salient 
Scarcely had the enemy's retreat been fully accomplished, and 
the battle along the Aisne trench was still raging, when the 
Germans launched another attack on the Meuse defenses. This 
time much larger forces from the Metz stronghold pushed across 
the Woevre plain, penetrated the poorly defended plateau along 
the defile of Creue,or Spada,and succeeded in reaching the west- 
ern bank of the river at St. Mihiel. Fort Camp des Romains, 
with the subterranean caverns of the meander spur on which it 
was built, fell to the enemy and formed a strong protection for the 
apex of the wedge which was thus driven into the natural defenses 
of the Meuse front. Vigorous efforts to enlarge the gains west 
of the Meuse were defeated by an effective defense of the river 
trench, while troops hurrying southward from Verdun and north- 
ward from Toul garrisoned the other topographic barriers of the 
region and checked the enemy's attempts to enlarge the wedge. 
Although the danger was thus held within bounds, the Germans 
could henceforth profit from the strength of those obstacles they 
had seized while inadequately garrisoned. The southern side of 
the "St. Mihiel salient" was defended by the outlying ridge and 
butte of Le Mont and Mont Sec (Fig. 93), commanding a 
vast stretch of the marshy Woevre lowland, and by the dissected 
and wooded upland of eastern Haye; while the northwestern side 
was solidly placed on the partially detached spur at Combres, 
defended on the west by the moat of Les Eparges valley (Fig. 
90). Thus the projecting Hattonchatel bastion was securely in 
German hands; the road, railway, and canal connecting Ver- 
dun with Toul were severed; the highly important Paris- 
Toul-Nancy railway was brought under fire; the investment of 
the Verdun stronghold on the north, east, and south completed; 
and a menacing wedge so firmly lodged in the Allied front that 
nearly four years would pass ere the danger was removed. 

Local Combats 
In the Argonne the less dissected portion of the plateau's gentle 
western slope covered by Grurie Wood and the dissected walls of 



SECOND ST. MIHIEL BATTLE 389 

the Biesme trench to the south were hotly contested for many 
months. Here the Germans pushed southward again, but the 
bloody struggles which made all the world acquainted with the 
names of small subdivisions of the forest — the Woods of Baga- 
telle, Fontaine-Madame, Four de Paris, and others — showed at 
how dear a price any advance in this savage country must be 
purchased. The defile of La Chalade was long the scene of a bit- 
ter struggle, each side seeking to possess and use this important 
pathway over the plateau. Violent German attacks in June and 
July, 1915, preceded by heavy bombardments and the copious 
use of poison gas, may have aimed at a rupture of the French 
front and the development of operations on a larger scale; but 
despite the fact that "certain negligences of the local command on 
the French side" gave the Crown Prince undue advantages, he 
was unable to exploit his initial gains in a country where Nature 
was the strong ally of the defense. 

The Germans, having succeeded in holding the butte of 
Vauquois, two miles southeast of Varennes, had converted it 
into an apparently impregnable buttress of their line across the 
Barrois plateau. Together with the even more commanding 
Montfaucon butte, where the Crown Prince had his headquarters 
and which the French attacked both in 1914 and 191 5 without 
success, it seemed to guarantee stability to this sector of the 
enemy front. The French Third Army assaulted the Vauquois 
buttress about the middle of February, 1915, in a vain effort to 
carry it by storm. But it was too formidable an obstacle to be 
taken without serious preparation. Ten days after this pre- 
liminary attack a violent bombardment paved the way for an 
assault in force pushed home with the greatest energy. After 
several days of murderous combat the French secured the coveted 
height (Fig. 85). 

The Second Battle of St. Mihiel Salient 
Early in 191 5 the French undertook the task of crushing in the 
St. Mihiel salient, in order to remove this menace to the Meuse 
barrier defenses and to free the corridor of the Meuse from Ger- 



390 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

man interference. Both sides of the salient were vigorously 
attacked in February, March, and April. The strong natural 
trench and ridge positions at Les Eparges and Combres, buttress- 
ing the northwestern side of the salient, were partially conquered 
after repeated costly assaults. Little progress was made on the 
rest of the forested upland, but in the lowland to the northeast the 
attacking troops plowed through the mud for larger gains before 
brought to a halt east of Fresnes. On the south an attempt to 
push north and seize the railway which from Metz followed up the 
Rupt de Mad to Thiaucourt, the center of supply for most of the 
salient, was brought to a standstill before either the mud of the 
Woevre or the dissected plateau of the Haye had been traversed 
for more than a mile or two. The long and bitter struggle to gain 
the partially detached plateau upland northwest of Pont-a- 
Mousson, bounded on the east by the Moselle trench, on the 
north and south by two of its lateral tributary gorges, and cov- 
ered by a forest (Bois le Pretre) made famous by many bloody 
combats in its maze of quarries and caverns, did not terminate 
favorably to the French until the second week in May; and 
a further advance over the similar terrain beyond was not 
deemed feasible. However hazardous to the German troops 
within it the St. Mihiel salient might appear, and however 
tempting to attack, it was in reality so strongly protected by 
natural obstacles that nothing less than an overwhelming 
superiority in artillery fire and man power could crush it. 
After suffering very heavy losses and registering but slight 
gains, the French abandoned the attempt. 

The Battle of Verdun 
On the morning of February 21, 1916, there suddenly opened 
against the northern and eastern defenses of Verdun a bombard- 
ment more terrible than anything hitherto experienced in war. 
For a complex of reasons which it is not here necessary to exam- 
ine but which included among them the desire to crush the 
formidable bastion which might at any moment serve as the base 
for a dangerous Allied operation against the Briey plateau and 



BATTLE OF VERDUN 391 

its mineral deposits, or against the entrenched camp of Metz, the 
German high command had deliberately decided to strike at one 
of the strongest points on the whole Allied front. It was hoped 
that the suddenness and overwhelming power of the assault would 
offset the natural difficulties of the terrain, which latter the 
Germans fully understood. The permanent fortresses were less 
to be feared than the barriers of Nature, against which the strong- 
est explosives were impotent. Experience at Liege, Namur, 
Maubeuge, and elsewhere had demonstrated that no masonry fort 
could withstand for long the crushing weight of fire developed 
by heavy siege artillery; but against plateau scarps, massive 
limestone ridges, and deep natural moats no impression could be 
made. Only in case the defenders of the terrain could be de- 
stroyed or demoralized by the fury of the bombardment, and the 
plateau then overrun by resistless waves of men, could victory 
be achieved. The German army had long been assembling the 
vast stores of munitions and the masses of men necessary for 
such an undertaking, building the dozen or more new railways 
necessary to feed them rapidly to the front of attack, training the 
forces of assault, and rehearsing the operations in which they 
were to participate. 

The French, equally realizing the danger of trusting to obsolete 
forts for the defense of a given point and appreciating the superior 
value of natural obstacles, had organized the Verdun terrain with 
much skill. They could still learn from the Germans valuable 
lessons in the art of utilizing to the utmost the defensive advan- 
tages offered by a favorable topography, and in the Battle of the 
Somme would soon purchase such instruction at a heavy price. 
But what was lacking in art on the Battlefield of Verdun was 
more than compensated by Nature. The plateau scarp, the 
asymmetrical meander spurs interlocking along the Meuse 
trench, the cross ridges between lateral ravines, the narrow 
bridges of the upland surface connecting one parallel ridge with 
another (p. 366) — all were seized upon and strengthened by an 
elaborate system of field works, including trenches, tunnels, 
dugouts, and wire entanglements, linking up forts, fortified 



392 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

villages, quarries, and subterranean caverns. Pushed beyond 
the outer limits of the fortress ring were field works designed to 
break the force of the enemy onslaught on one line of ridge and 
spur after another, before the forts themselves could be assaulted. 
Big guns were taken from the forts and moved to better posi- 
tions on the far stronger natural barriers. To the limestone 
hills of Verdun, rather than to walls of steel and concrete, was 
the safety of France to be confided. 

The terrific bombardment of February 21 lasted only nine hours, 
but was delivered by 2,000 great guns throwing shells of medium 
and largest size charged with high explosives. The whole surface 
was transformed into a labyrinth of deep craters. Then the 
infantry waves leaped forward to the assault. Enough French- 
men had lived through the inferno to defend the plateau scarp 
and cross ridges with tenacity. A scant footing only was gained 
on the former north of Ornes, opposite the outlying butte 
of Les Jumelles already held by the Germans. The attack from 
the north was quickly checked on the northern part of the 
Caures Wood cross ridge (which is the eastward continuation of 
the Cote de Talou meander spur), after the Germans had over- 
run all of the minor Haumont ridge just to the north except the 
village of Haumont itself. A second and a third day of terrific 
bombardment, effectually preventing the supply of food, muni- 
tions, and other aid to the defenders, and repeated infantry 
assaults were necessary to complete the conquest of the Haumont 
ridge and to secure full use of the connecting spur or "bridge" 
joining it to the Caures Wood ridge. Two French divisions, 
thinned by heavy losses and worn almost to the point of ex- 
haustion, were sufficient on this remarkable terrain to hold five 
divisions of picked German shock troops, supported by one of the 
heaviest bombardments in history, to very moderate gains. Snow 
and mud made the lot of the defenders more pitiable, but in- 
creased the difficulties to be overcome by the advance. Two 
more days of the hurricane of explosives, steel, poison gas, liquid 
fire, and all the other murderous implements of modern scien- 
tific warfare, supplemented by prodigal sacrifices of human lives, 



BATTLE OF VERDUN 393 

carried the enemy over the Caures Wood ridge and along the 
broad Beaumont "bridge" connecting it with the Louvemont- 
C6te du Poivre ridge next to the south. 

In five days of the most terrible warfare ever known, two 
of the northern defensive barriers of Verdun had been captured. 
The unexpectedness of the attack (the French knew preparations 
were in progress, but various facts indicated it was not imminent) 
and the unheard-of fury with which it had developed made the 
progress of the enemy disquieting, although the German high 
command was deeply chagrined that their "colossal" efforts had 
lailed to smash through to immediate victory. On the night of 
the 24th Joffre approved General de Langle de Cary's plan to 
have his forces in the Woevre lowland, menaced by the German 
advance southward along the plateau, fall back upon the solid 
barrier of the Meuse escarpment east of Verdun, but decisively 
rejected the suggested possibility of withdrawing the forces 
north of Verdun to the west bank of the Meuse lest, caught be- 
tween overwhelming numbers of the enemy in front and the river 
at their backs, they should meet disaster. De Castelnau, whose 
keen appreciation of the defensive value of topographic barriers 
had made him the savior of Nancy (p. 481), was sent to examine 
the situation on the ground, and assured himself that the de- 
fense could be successfully maintained on the cross ridges. Petain 
was then placed in charge of the further conduct of the battle. 

The difficulties of defending the Verdun terrain were enor- 
mously augmented by the lack of proper transport facilities. 
With the only railroad to the south cut at St. Mihiel and the 
only railroad to the west, via the Les Islettes defile through the 
Argonnes, rendered useless by enemy artillery fire, there remained 
but the narrow-gauge line and the highway southward along the 
poorly developed lowland at the base of the Barrois plateau 
scarp. The highway, greatly broadened and improved, was the 
main supply line, and along this "Sacred Way" there passed 
6,000 auto vehicles daily, transporting 90,000 men and 50,000 
tons of material between Bar and Verdun every week. 5 

6 Victor Giraud: Histoire de la Grande Guerre, Paris, 1919 p. 334. 



394 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

The fierce struggle continued without pause, and new assaults 
carried the meander spur of Cote de Talou and most of the Louve- 
mont-Cote du Poivre ridge (Fig. 94). At last the enemy was 
knocking at the doors of Douaumont, the northernmost of the 
Verdun forts. But it was the "bridge" leading to the Douaumont- 
C6te de Froide Terre ridge and the low knoll in the center of 
this ridge upon which the fort was located (Fig. 96) rather than 
the fort itself which were the objects of the bitter fighting. 
Those who may have imagined that it was the fortress ring 
rather than the natural obstacles on which the defense was 
based may find confirmation of the limited role of the old forts 
in the fact that Fort Douaumont was entered by a German 
patrol which found the drawbridge down and the tiny garri- 
son of 23 men, left to serve the one gun not dismantled for 
use elsewhere, sound asleep. The enemy installed himself in the 
fort without firing a shot. 6 Other portions of the permanent 
defenses were stripped of their guns and garrisons for use in the 
field, and surrendered to the enemy without special resistance. 
There is reason to fear that this dismantling of the fixed forts was 
carried too far, for with their protected guns and their deep sub- 
terranean shelters they can prove most valuable supplements to 
field works. 

For more than a week the battle raged around the high crest 
of Douaumont, about the dismantled fort. The enemy's first 
assaults had been favored by the* covered woodland patches, but 
these were now shot away. Still he sought to penetrate the pla- 
teau by the eastern ravines and work westward and southward by 
utilizing the advantageous positions of the plateau "bridges." 
In the end the eastern portion of the Douaumont-Cote de Froide 
Terre ridge was held by the enemy; but his rate of advance 
across the ridges and along the connecting "bridges" was becom- 
ing dishearteningly slow. Bloody assaults and the repulse of 
repeated French counterattacks were required for every foot 
of ground gained. Another difficulty of the terrain was beginning 

6 Joseph Mangin: Comment finit la guerre, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Vol. 56, 1920, 
pp. 481-520, 721-762; Vol. 57, 1920, pp. 241-285, 481-537, 774-815; Vol. 58, 1920, 
pp. 74-101; reference in Vol. 56, p. 729. 



BATTLE OF VERDUN 395 

to make itself felt more and more: the narrowness of the topo- 
graphic belts on the Verdun battlefield. On the east the zone of 
attack was limited by the plateau scarp of the Cotes de Meuse. 
Under other conditions the French troops facing north would 
have been exposed to a galling fire in their rear and to the con- 
stant danger of a flank attack. But with the enemy on the 
exposed plain of the Woevre, the French positions on the plateau 
were secure. German artillery in the plain was unable to con- 
trol by direct observation its fire on objectives concealed from 
view on the upland beyond the crest; and, if it placed guns for 
this purpose, they could soon be located by the dominating 
observation posts on the heights, and put out of action. To the 
west the German front of attack was limited by the deep wind- 
ing trench of the Meuse, which made it difficult for troops on 
the two sides to co-operate effectively, the more so as at this 
season of the year the valley floor was more or less constantly 
a mire of mud or a vast sheet of flood water. From the scarp 
crest to the valley trench was a front of only five to eight miles, 
and, with such a limited sector to defend, the French, now ade- 
quately warned and taking advantage of the admirable defensive 
features of the terrain, were equal to the worst which the Ger- 
mans could attempt. Furthermore, the advanced German line 
on the east side of the river was now being fired upon from the 
rear by the French on the west side, who retained their old posi- 
tions farther north. The Crown Prince was at last compelled 
to widen his zone of attack despite the disadvantages caused by 
operating astride the river barrier; but this decision was too 
tardy to permit his reaping the advantages which might have 
come from a broad attack pushed home with vigor while sur- 
prise was possible. 

On March 6 the Germans attacked the natural trench of the 
Forges brook, which was protected on the south by the dominat- 
ing meander spur of Mort Homme-C6te de l'Oie, continued 
westward by the point of the Barrois plateau scarp known as 
Hill 304 which dominated the whole (Fig. 94). The stream 
trench and this line of heights formed a single strong defensive 



396 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

system which it was necessary to conquer by a single blow if the 
initial operation was to be successful. The eastern end of the 
meander spur, forming the Cote de l'Oie, subjected on all sides 
to German fire, was captured by the following day; but wave 
after wave of the assaulting troops swept up the northern glacis 
of the Mort Homme only to be massacred wholesale. Day after 
day the frightful slaughter continued, and still the grim summit 
of Dead Man's Hill rose unconquered above its mantle of 
corpses. In the meantime simultaneous attacks were in progress 
east of the river. Efforts to capture the Cote du Poivre and so 
to complete the conquest of the Louvemont-Cote du Poivre 
ridge were defeated ; while farther east enemy columns entered 
the face of the escarpment by the Vaux ravine, capturing part of 
the village of the same name as they worked up toward the ravine 
head, where they hoped to debouch on the plateau at the Fleury 
"bridge" (Fig. 95) and around Fort Vaux. In this last attempt 
they were checked, a vigorous French counterattack throwing 
back enemy units which reached the plateau bridge at Fleury 
and were pushing south to the Cote St. Michel-Fort Vaux ridge. 

Baffled by the resistance encountered, the Germans returned 
to artillery bombardment, which raged with extreme fury all 
along the northern front for two days. Then* on March 14, the 
assaulting waves once more hurled themselves against the solid 
rock defenses. Again the slopes of Mort Homme flowed blood, 
and the scarp at the Vaux ravine became an inferno in which 
charge after charge broke impotently upon the steep slopes. Soon 
the attack extended to the western end of the Forges brook 
trench and its guardian Hill 304, the latter being assaulted from 
the shades of the forest about Avocourt on the western slope of 
the Barrois plateau. Slight advances were made here and there 
during a week of murderous fighting, but at a cost out of all pro- 
portion to the gains scored. The main defenses stood unshaken. 

Having failed to carry the natural fortress by the first grand 
assaults on the two sides of the river, the Crown Prince now set 
about to batter down the walls by a continuous series of sledge- 
hammer blows. By the end of March he had secured the western 



BATTLE OF VERDUN 397 

end of the Forges trench at Malancourt (Fig. 94) ; early in April 
the central portion at Bethincourt. The entire trench was now 
his, but it could be held only at a terrible price so long as the 
French on Mort Homme ridge and the plateau spur of Hill 304 
poured high explosives into it with deadly precision. At what- 
ever cost, these dominating heights at the south must be con- 
quered. Hence on April 10 and 11 a furious assault was directed 
against the positions from the north and west. Mort Homme 
was smothered by the gray waves and passed to the enemy, 
buried to its summit in the mounting shroud of German dead. 
The vital height of Hill 304, which looked down upon Mort 
Homme and so prevented the Germans from utilizing their gain, 
withstood every shock. Several weeks more of intense fighting 
were required to give the Germans a foothold on this important 
spur, and even then they failed to gain complete control of it. 
East of the Meuse the Cote du Poivre defied German efforts to 
complete its conquest, and the Vaux ravine, of vital importance 
as a key giving access to the plateau "bridge" of Fleury and the 
upland around Fort Vaux, was still but partially in German 
hands, notwithstanding innumerable costly attacks. At one 
moment (April 2) German units had succeeded in debouching 
from the ravine and in pushing southward from Douaumont 
ridge along the Fleury "bridge" (Fig. 95), thus threatening the 
Cote St. Michel-Fort Vaux ridge just to the south; but a vigor- 
ous French counterattack restored the situation. Petain having 
been named commander of the central group of armies, Nivelle, 
ably seconded by Mangin, now directed the heroic defense. 

During April and May the bitter struggle continued without 
appreciable success on the part of the attacking forces. Defeated 
by the strength of topographic barriers which were defended with 
unflinching determination and unfaltering courage by the heroic 
soldiers of France, the Crown Prince dared not confess defeat. 
So he continued the unequal contest. Douaumont ridge and the 
ruins of Fort Douaumont, the latter better defended by the 
Germans than formerly by the French, were partially recaptured 
by a French counterattack but quickly lost again. Early in June, 



398 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

after a violent bombardment of several days' duration, the es- 
carpment near Damloup was assailed and the eastern end of the 
C6te St. Michel-Fort Vaux ridge, including Fort Vaux itself, 
captured by the Germans after days of bloody combat during 
which the Germans held the upper part of the fort while the 
French resisted heroically in its subterranean galleries. 7 At the 
same time the enemy pushed doggedly forward from Douaumont 
ridge over the Fleury "bridge" to attack the Cote St. Michel- 
Fort Vaux ridge in its center, about Fort Souville (Fig. 95). 
Again the danger of disaster in case the defenders should be 
overwhelmed in front while blocked by a deep river trench in 
their rear was discussed by the French command, and Petain 
for a second time called the attention of Joffre to the gravity of 
the situation. The latter, imperturbable, replied that "it was 
necessary at any cost to continue the struggle on the right bank." 8 
The Crown Prince now prepared a supreme blow against the 
C6te St. Michel-Fort Vaux ridge, the last barrier protecting Ver- 
dun on the northeast. In the scheme of the fortified camp four 
forts were aligned along its crest from west to east: Fort Belle- 
ville, Fort St. Michel, Fort Souville, and Fort Vaux (Fig. 95). 
The latter work, together with the eastern end of the ridge, 
was already in German hands. Could the center of the ridge 
about Fort Souville be conquered, the western end with the 
remaining forts could be taken in the flank and soon disposed 
of. Then the defenders would be forced to escape to the western 
bank of the Meuse River across bridges under direct enemy fire. 
The stage was carefully set for a French disaster, and about the 
20th of June the "colossal" bombardment began. In one day 
more than 100,000 shells of asphyxiating gases fell on the narrow 
front, in addition to the deluge of high explosives. On the 23rd 
the field-gray waves swept over the Fleury "bridge," deluged the 
village and its defenses, and beat about Fort Souville. The 
western, or Froide Terre, end of the Douaumont-C6te de Froide 
Terre ridge, which still held out against the enemy, was assaulted 

7 Mangin, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Vol. 56, p. 735. 

8 Ibid., p. 736. 



BATTLE OF VERDUN 399 

in vain; and even the western extremity of the C6te du Poivre 
ridge farther north resisted complete conquest. But "the situa- 
tion was grave, for the German wave was now ready to beat 
against the Belleville ridge (Cote St. Michel), the last dike 
separating it from Verdun. It had reached the heads of the 
ravines descending from Froide Terre toward the Meuse, and 
the Cote du Poivre was in danger of being submerged with 
its defenders taken in the rear." For the third time Petain 
represented to the generalissimo the danger of the situation, 
and once again the imperturbable Joffre commanded that 
Verdun should continue to be defended on the right bank of 
the Meuse. 9 

A few days later the great Franco-British offensive on the plain 
of the Somme (p. 144) burst in all its fury, with the relief of 
pressure on Verdun as one of its objectives. In July, and again 
in August, the German assault waves were to break against the 
Cote St. Michel-Fort Vaux ridge about Fort Souville at the 
southern end of the Fleury "bridge," but in vain. The eyes of 
the German army were turning anxiously toward the danger on 
the Somme, and the storm at Verdun died away. Germany's 
supreme effort against, the formidable terrain of the Meuse pla- 
teau had failed of success. Barred from any major assault from 
the east by the great wall of the plateau's east-facing escarpment, 
the Army of the Crown Prince was forced to attack southward 
across a series of parallel ridges and ravines, each of which exacted 
a price in German blood which left the enemy measurably weak- 
ened. New levies could be thrown into the struggle and fur- 
ther advances purchased at the price demanded; but in the 
end the natural defenses of Verdun were as a whole too strong 
for the assembled might of Germany to overcome. And when, a 
few months later, the French took advantage of Germany's pre- 
occupation with the menace of the Somme to launch at intervals 
several brilliant attacks, the Cote de Froide Terre-Douaumont 
ridge and part of the Cote du Poivre-Louvemont ridge were 
successively recovered. 

9 Mangin, Rev. des Deux Monies, Vol. 56, p. 737. 



400 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

But the cost to the French of assaulting the ridge positions was 
too great to permit unlimited progress, despite the fact that the 
Germans at first had but a single line of defense with inadequate 
outposts, while the mechanism of the French artillery prepara- 
tion and of the advance itself were superbly planned, with an 
ingenuity never matched by their Teuton antagonists. The diffi- 
cult terrain, now more formidable than ever by reason of the 
labyrinth of shell holes filled with mud and water, could only be 
reconquered piecemeal, albeit in larger slices than the enemy was 
able to seize. The common statement that in two or three short 
engagements the German gains of ten months of bloody struggle 
were wiped out, and the enemy thrown back on his lines of depart- 
ure, is a gross exaggeration. A large part of the territory gained 
in the enemy's offensive remained in his hands. But the French 
recovered all that was necessary to make Verdun reasonably 
secure and to demonstrate to the world, and particularly to the 
German people, that the bloody campaign against the impregna- 
ble stronghold was a complete failure as well as a ghastly blunder. 

The last flame of the Battle of Verdun flashed up brightly in 
August and September of the following year, when as one element 
in a series of combined offensives the French by a succession of 
brilliant strokes practically completed the recapture of the Cote 
du Poivre-Louvemont ridge and gained the Cote de Talou 
meander spur forming part of the Caures Wood ridge next to the 
north. On the western side of the Meuse the famous Mort 
Homme-C6te de l'Oie ridge was seized (Fig. 94), as well as the 
part of Hill 304 gained by the enemy the previous year; and the 
Army of the Crown Prince once more found itself down in the 
Forges brook trench under a deadly fire from the French. The 
operations of these two months put one more complete ridge 
barrier between the enemy and Verdun, and furious German 
counterattacks were unable to recover the lost terrain. 

The Third Battle of St. Mihiel Salient 
Ever since the abortive attempt of the French to extinguish the 
St. Mihiel salient early in 191 5 the Allies had been menaced with 



THIRD ST. MIHIEL BATTLE 401 

the possibility of an extension of the bridgehead which the 
Germans held on the eastern side of the Meuse barrier. The 
defense of Verdun had been rendered immensely difficult by the 
presence of this thorn in the side of the French, which not only 
cut an important artery carrying life to the entrenched camp but 
threatened at any moment to open a wound which might prove 
fatal. Even after the collapse of the Crown Prince's disastrous 
attack on the entrenched camp, the possibility of an expansion of 
the salient had always to be faced. To prevent this the French 
had organized a series of strong defensive positions along the 
Meuse trench and the plateau upland and scarp on the northwest; 
while first the French and later the Americans prepared four 
main defense lines facing the southern side of the salient across 
the Woevre plain and Haye plateau from the base of the scarp 
near Commercy to the Cotes de Moselle east of the Moselle 
trench. Of these lines, most of which had variants, the first was 
based in part on the marshes and lakes of the upper Rupt de Mad, 
and the butte of Mousson in the Cotes de Moselle; the second in 
part on the lake-forest massif of the Foret de la Reine in the 
Woevre, the Forest of Puvenelle on a plateau tableland in the 
Haye nearly surrounded by deep gorges, and the Ste. Genevieve 
mesa in the Cotes de Moselle; the third on lake barriers in 
the Foret de la Reine, the deep gorge of the Ache River through 
the Haye plateau, and the valley trench and plateau tableland 
next south of Ste. Genevieve; the fourth on the Meuse plateau 
scarp near Fort Gironville (Fig. 81), the Terrouin River trench 
to its junction with the Moselle at Aingeray, thence the trench 
of the Moselle and the Forest of Haye eastward to where the 
river bends sharply northward, north of Nancy. Thus was the 
danger of the enemy's exploiting the St. Mihiel gain minimized 
by a skillful use of such topographic barriers as ran transverse to 
the general grain of the terrain. But the danger remained. 

When the progress of the Victory Offensive in the summer of 
19 1 8 made desirable a northward advance of the French and 
American armies holding the front from west to east across the 
Verdun battlefield, it became essential to remove the menace of 



402 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

the St. Mihiel salient; or, to borrow the figure and words of 
another, to "cut the thread, or rather the cable, which for too 
long a time had held us tied by the foot in the region of the 
Meuse." 10 

The task was confided to the American forces under General 
Pershing, assisted by important French units. Originally 
planned earlier in the summer as an operation of considerable 
magnitude, the undertaking had later been limited to the simple 
suppression of the salient in order to disengage the Verdun-Toul 
and Paris-Nancy railways and to prepare a good base of departure 
for subsequent more important operations. This end was to be 
accomplished by having the First and Fourth American Corps 
forming the southern side of the salient swing northward and 
northeastward, the left wing to reach the point of the Hatton- 
chatel bastion at Vigneulles and the right to pivot on the solid 
buttress of the dissected eastern edge of the Haye region where 
trenched by the Moselle gorge, crowned by the famous strong- 
hold of Bois le Pretre, and defended by the outlying barrier of the 
Cotes de Moselle (Fig. 78). At the same time the Fifth Corps on 
the margin of the Meuse plateau to the northwest should attack 
the strong ridge position at Combres buttressing the salient near 
Les Eparges (not completely conquered by the French in the 
Second Battle of St. Mihiel Salient) and endeavor to crush in 
this side of the salient by advancing southeast to Vigneulles. As 
these two jaws of the trap closed to meet at the point of the 
Hattonchatel bastion, the French Second Colonial Corps, holding 
the apex and much of the west side of the salient, would close 
in on St. Mihiel. 

General Pershing was under no illusions as to the formidable 
character of a position which had defied two previous attempts 
at its reduction. "Its primary strength," he writes, "lay in the 
natural defensive features of the terrain itself." 11 The wooded 

10 Louis Madelin: La Bataille de France; 21 mars-11 novembre, 1918, Rev. 
des Deux Monies, Vol. 52, 1919, pp. 798-853; Vol. 53, 1919, pp. 59-99, 270-310, 
533-569, 785-828; Vol. 54, 1919, PP. 64-108, 314-363; reference in Vol. 53, p. 794- 

11 Final Report of General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief, American 
Expeditionary Forces, Annual Rept. War Dept. for 191 9, Vol. 1, Part I, pp. 547- 
642, Washington, D. C, 1920; reference on p. 587. 



THIRD ST. MIHIEL BATTLE 403 

heights of the Meuse plateau as well as the ravine of Les 
Eparges and the Combres ridge, buttressing the western side of 
the salient, have already been described. Along the southern 
side the attacking troops would have to advance over the difficult 
terrain of the wet Woevre plain. Here "the front lines lay in a 
low, marshy valley, so that the trenches were always awash with 
mud, and each night the demand for working parties required 
almost the entire garrison to repair and drain these trenches." 
"On account of the swampy nature of the country" the American 
Commander-in-Chief considered it "especially important that the 
movement be undertaken and finished before the fall rains should 
begin, which was usually about the middle of September." In 
describing the original American front along the south side of the 
St. Mihiel salient, Captain Shipley Thomas observes: "But the 
one great feature of the landscape was the German position. The 
German front lines were also in the marsh, and their support lines 
on the rising ground beyond, somewhere in the edge of the woods, 
but above all was Mont Sec. Immediately in front of the Toul 
sector stood this hill — solitary, conical like a sugar loaf, 457 feet 
above the valley bottom — and from it the Germans saw every 
move that was made in the sector and were able to adjust their 
artillery fire with the greatest nicety. Mont Sec was just 2,000 
yards behind the front line, and, with its concrete dugouts and 
tunnels and observation posts, it commanded the entire country 
for miles around — a fortress unassailable by any force at our 
command." 12 Now the American forces were enormously aug- 
mented, and outflanking operations were to reduce that fortress. 
On September 12, after a bombardment of four hours, the 
infantry launched the assault. With remarkable precision the 
newest army of the Allies executed its orders as if on maneuver. 
The American forces on the southern side of the salient, "plodding 
almost knee-deep in the awful quagmire, . . . followed the 
barrage which splashed in the mud in front of them" and swung 
round northeastward on Thiaucourt, extending their left toward 
Vigneulles; while American and French troops on the north- 

12 Shipley Thomas: The History of the A. E. F., New York, 1920, p. 58. 



404 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

western side rushed the defenses of the Les Eparges ravine and 
Combres ridge, defended by an Austro-Hungarian division 
which, as Ludendorff mildly expresses it, "might have fought 
better," and pushed into Vigneulles as directed. The imposing 
positions of Le Mont and Mont Sec, outflanked by the American 
advance and assaulted by the French, fell at a blow. 

At last the dangerous wedge which had harassed the Allies 
for four years had been blotted out by the employment of a 
weight of men and material sufficiently great to overcome all 
obstacles and by the handling of these elements in a manner 
which earned for the American Commander-in-Chief the warm 
commendations of Marshal Foch. The troops assembled for 
this one short operation made an army nearly four times as 
large as Grant's Army of the Potomac at its maximum strength, 
three times Napoleon's Grand Army at Leipzig, nearly twice the 
German army at Sedan in 1870, and much larger than either 
the Japanese or Russian armies at Mukden, the largest on record 
before 1914. 13 Unfortunately, the enemy had ample warning of 
the impending blow and was actually in process of evacuating the 
salient when it fell. Both American and French officers talked 
much and indiscreetly of the forthcoming American premiere, 
Paris papers hinted at it, and Swiss papers discussed the probable 
date of its occurrence. When the Germans observed the enor- 
mous concentration of troops, outnumbering them more than five 
to one on this front, they began the withdrawal of guns, material, 
and men. Hence the weakness of the enemy resistance, the low 
casualty list due to his gunfire, and the disappointingly small 
number of prisoners captured (14,500) in view of the suddenness 
with which the salient was pinched out. Yet the victory was 
clean-cut, and convinced friend and foe that the new American 
army was a power to reckon with. 

The Battle of the Meuse-Argonne 

Conditions were now ripe for the launching of the Franco- 
American drive northward toward Mezieres and Sedan which, in 

1 3 Thomas, The History of the A. E. F., p. 210. 



MEUSE -ARGONNE BATTLE 405 

connection with the British drive eastward to Maubeuge, was 
to cut the vital artery of German communications rimming 
the Ardennes Mountains, split the German armies in twain 
on the Ardennes wedge, and consummate the Allied march 
to victory begun July 18 on the Marne. Marshal Foch had 
directed that the French Fourth Army, now under Gouraud, and 
the American First Army under General Pershing should attack 
in unison about September 20 or 25 on a front extending from 
the Suippe River in the Champagne to the Meuse River near 
Verdun, the trench of the latter to serve as a protective barrier 
for the right flank of the advancing Americans. 

One of the Germans' greater defensive positions lay back of 
their present front before the ultimate objective should be 
reached. This was the Hunding-Brunhilde Stellung (Fig. 55), 
based on the Aisne trench from west of Rethel in the Champagne 
to Attigny, thence southeastward along the Aisne trench and 
the Argonne barrier to the junction of the Aire, thence eastward 
through the Argonne along the deep, broad defile of the Aire to 
Grandpre, and on eastward as the "Kriemhild Stellung" across the 
badly dissected and wooded terrain of the northern Barrois 
plateau, to join the Antwerp-Meuse line at the Meuse River. 
The Kriemhild sector, like the rest of this counterpart of the 
Hindenburg Line, was really a broad zone of successive defensive 
lines skillfully sited so as to derive every advantage from the 
topography. The "Antwerpen-Maas Stellung" would be reached 
(but not passed) when the ultimate objective in the Mezieres- 
Sedan lowland corridor (p. 327), the vital railway artery on which 
a large part of the German armies depended for their existence, 
was finally attained. 

In the advance Gouraud's army would traverse the Dry 
Champagne and the Aisne lowland, starting from a front extend- 
ing from Auberive-sur-Suippe to Vienne-le-Chateau at the exit 
of the Biesme valley from the Argonne. To the American army 
fell the almost superhuman task of advancing over the Argonne 
plateau, in which "the ravines, hills, and carefully sited systems 
of defense concealed by thick underbrush had hitherto been con- 



406 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

sidered as impregnable." East of the Argonne plateau the narrow 
Aire lowland, the wooded plateau of Barrois dominated by the 
buttes of Vauquois and Montfaucon and dissected farther north 
into a maze of hills and valleys, and finally the parallel ridges and 
ravines of the Meuse plateau west of the River Meuse and of the 
Barrois plateau east of the River Aire, made a terrain as for- 
midable as one could well imagine outside of alpine mountains. 
The wooded hills offered a multitude of concealed machine-gun 
positions from which cross fire, far more demoralizing than fire 
from in front, could be directed on troops advancing over the 
open, cleared spaces. Across such barriers lay the American path 
to victory, starting from the front Vienne-le-Chateau-Vauquois 
butte-Forges ravine. 

On September 26 the two armies assaulted the German line 
along the whole of the selected front. Despite the difficulties of 
the terrain the Americans swept forward several miles over the 
Barrois plateau to the base of the stronghold of Montfaucon and 
across the broad ridge north of the Forges ravine. The German 
defenses had literally been crushed by a hurricane of steel and 
high explosives, and enemy resistance was for the moment par- 
alyzed along most of the line. In the Argonne plateau, as might 
be expected, the advance was a little less marked; but in the 
open Aisne lowland the French made good gains. The crest of 
Vauquois butte was quickly carried, but a first assault on Mont- 
faucon was hurled back. After brief preparation for a second 
attack the Americans, with magnificent dash, stormed the domi- 
nating height. Let a Frenchman speak: 14 "They captured Mont- 
faucon, the eagle's nest, and its butte, considered impregnable 
since we, in 1914 and 1915, expended against it so much effort and 
so much blood. It was a magnificent conquest. Montfaucon 
(342 meters high) dominates the whole region from the Meuse 
to beyond the chain of the Argonne. This peak constituted ever 
since 1914, I can testify, a painful obstacle in the eyes of those 
defending the northern part of the camp of Verdun. To have 
carried Montfaucon by storm was a magnificent exploit, a new 

14 Madelin, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Vol. S3. P- 808. 



MEUSE-ARGONNE BATTLE 407 

proof of the bravery of American fighters." In two days the 
Americans had conquered as much ground as the French high 
command had believed possible in the whole fall campaign on 
this difficult terrain. 15 With the strategic point of Montfaucon in 
its possession, the American First Army pushed on for further 
gains during the next few days. West of the Argonne the French 
advanced steadily in the Aisne lowland. 

In the Argonne, however, the story was very different after the 
first day's surprise attack. Here the Americans confronted the 
most nearly impregnable natural defenses of the whole terrain. 
To the ridges and ravines, dense forest, and denser underbrush 
were added a labyrinth of trenches, invisible wire entanglements, 
machine-gun nests in the trees, on the surface, and under ground, 
and a system of tunnels and subterranean galleries which made 
this section of the front renowned for the military engineering 
works carefully perfected by the enemy during four years of com- 
parative quiet. Rain began to fall, and the shell-torn soil con- 
taining much clay became a mire in which the movement of men 
and materials was painfully difficult. Both on the east and the 
west the battle line would bend far northward with large daily 
gains. But in the Argonne the gains must be small and dearly 
purchased, for neither bulldog determination nor dashing bravery 
could beat down the walls which Nature opposed to the advance. 
It was accordingly decided that the principal attacks should be 
delivered east and west of the Argonne, with the object of push- 
ing well forward on either side of the barrier and, by threatening 
from both flanks and the rear the enemy forces in the forest, com- 
pelling them to evacuate their strongest positions. Thus would 
the incalculable slaughter involved in a major operation through 
the forest itself be avoided. "The Argonne Forest was in fact so 
strong that the entire scheme of attack of the First American 
Army and the Fourth French Army west of it was governed by 
the necessity of forcing its defenders from it by outflanking rather 
than by direct attack." 16 

It is evident, however, that such a flanking operation must 

1 5 Pershing, Final Report, p. 586. 

16 Stars and Stripes, quoted by Thomas, The History of the A. E. F., p. 237. 



4 o8 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

prove a double-edged sword capable of cutting both ways. As 
the French on the west and the Americans on the east pushed 
farther and farther north of the German line on the Argonne 
plateau, not only could they assail the enemy's flanks, but the 
Germans in turn could from their commanding strongholds on 
the forested upland pour a galling flank fire into the rear of the 
advanced Allied positions. This soon proved a source of much 
embarrassment to the Allies, and made necessary some frontal 
attacks in the Argonne Forest in order to expedite the enemy's 
withdrawal. Thus General Gouraud, depending on the advance 
of his center and right to turn the formidable Moronvilliers massif 
east of Rheims (p. 268) from which an accurately directed artil- 
lery fire was holding his left in check, considered that the in- 
creasing danger to his right flank and rear from the Germans 
remaining well to the south in the Argonne made the cessation of 
his offensive necessary by September 30. That portion of the 
American army east of the Argonne, caught between the Germans 
holding fast well in their rear along the forested Argonne plateau 
on the one side and the Germans left far to the south on the 
wooded Meuse plateau east of the Meuse River on the other side, 
suffered heavy casualties until the Argonne and Meuse plateaus 
were cleared. The detailed history of the Meuse- Argonne offen- 
sive 17 is one continuous and striking record of the influence of 
terrain upon the tactics of a great battle. Along the center of 
attack we find the advancing forces delayed by the hill fortresses 
of Montfaucon, checked at Gesnes Creek and the deep Exermont 
ravine, held in front of the group of hills just north of these nat- 
ural trenches, "which seemed to have been piled in there together 
to make this place impassable to any assault." and which "was 
the key position commanding the whole front of the American 
First Army." In advancing over a part of these hills the famous 
1st Division suffered the heaviest casualties of all divisions in 
the Meuse-Argonne offensive. On the right wing one division 
after another executes perforce the delicate maneuver of wheeling 
to its right under fire in order to take position facing east along 

" Thomas, The History of the A. E. F., pp. 227-377. 



MEUSE-ARGONNE BATTLE 409 

the deep trench of the Meuse, the natural protection of the Ameri- 
can right flank. But it is on the left wing that the natural diffi- 
culties are greatest. The 77th Division, allotted the formidable 
task of pushing northward over the Argonne plateau as rapidly as 
the outflanking movements on either side reduce the enemy's re- 
sistance, "could make but little progress" after the surprise attack 
of the first day. "Long and bitter work it was in those deepwooded 
ravines bound with wire where the German rearguard could fight 
off any force which tried to rush that line." On the third day of 
the attack the 77th "was slowly pushing its way forward ;" on the 
fourth day it "made a little progress through the dense Argonne 
forest;" on the fifth day "slowly the 77th followed the German 
rearguards. It was very difficult work. The dense foliage, the 
deep ravines, and the barbed wire made progress extremely slow." 
On the sixth day there was no attack, but the day following the 
77th returned to the assault. "In this dense forest the troops be- 
came much involved, while the artillery was practically powerless. 
The battalions on the front had orders to press on, regardless of 
flanking units, but none were able to make the slightest advance, 
save one." Major C. W. Whittlesey with six companies pushed 
down a deep ravine nearly a mile, only to find himself surrounded 
by the enemy and completely isolated from his division. That 
night the 154th Brigade and two days later the whole of the 77th 
Division attacked to rescue the "Lost Battalion" "but made no 
progress." On the ninth day of the struggle "the 77th Division, 
in the Argonne, made another vain attempt to advance its lines in 
the forest to rescue Major Whittlesey and his six companies, but 
the Germans repulsed each advance." On the tenth day the divi- 
sion "attacked again to relieve the Lost Battalion but failed to 
advance." By the eleventh day of the conflict the Germans in the 
forest were badly outflanked on either side and were compelled to 
retreat to avoid capture when the Allies should close in on the 
pass of Grandpre in their rear. That day the 77th Division broke 
the resistance of the enemy rearguard, rescued the Lost Bat- 
talion, and began to catch up with their far-advanced comrades. 
The 28th Division, on the right of the 77th, was condemned by 



410 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

the nature of the terrain to a series of difficult and delicate 
maneuvers. "The mission assigned to the 28th Division was the 
most difficult of all. It had to maintain liaison on the right with 
the division which was advancing rapidly down the Aire valley, 
while on its left the 77th, with which it had also to maintain 
liaison, was in the forest itself, and would advance but slowly as 
the Germans were flanked out. The real mission of the 28th was 
therefore to swing around, pivoting on its left, and to outflank the 
high plateau of the Argonne, and yet always to keep advancing 
down the valley of the Aire. It practically amounted to facing 
the forest and then side-stepping along its front. The Argonne 
plateau which these troops were to face was [characterized by] a 
series of promontories sticking out towards the east, and it 
meant constantly pulling the southernmost troops out, marching 
them along the front, and putting them in on the north of the 
line." The spur or promontory of Le Chene Tondu, and Hills 223 
and 224, protecting Chatel-Chehery, about five miles southeast of 
Grandpre, were among the strong natural positions which men- 
aced the American left flank and which had to be captured before 
the Argonne could be cleared of the enemy. Until this was done 
the American center on the Barrois plateau dared make no fur- 
ther advance, for it already formed a dangerous salient flanked 
on the east by the Germans on the heights across the Meuse River 
and on the west by the Germans still in position far south on the 
Argonne barrier. 

It was on October 4 that the American First Army initiated 
the second phase of the Meuse- Argonne offensive by a new 
assault against the imposing obstacles which had been holding it 
in check. With irresistible fury it drove forward for a gain of 
two miles in places. Then, as the enemy recovered from the first 
onslaught, began the heartbreaking task of battering down his 
resistance on one natural obstacle after another. The attack 
westward across the Aire trench and against the steep eastern 
face of the Argonne plateau at Le Chene Tondu and Chatel- 
Chehery was a most difficult operation, but helped to dislodge the 
enemy from his strong positions on the upland. For a week the 



MEUSE-ARGONNE BATTLE 411 

bloody contest raged in the somber shades of the rugged plateau 
and along its frowning escarpment, the khaki-clad figures surging 
against ravinewall and ridge slope in brown waveswhich might be 
broken and hurled back, but which returned to the assault until 
the defenders, outgeneraled and outfought, yielded one barrier 
after another. Onthecjththeenemy'sresistancewas badly broken, 
and during the 10th he fell back northward behind the trans- 
verse gorge of the Aire, part of his Hunding-Brunhilde Stellung. 

During this difficult and costly advance the forces east of the 
Argonne pushed northward over the Barrois upland to reach the 
eastward continuation of the Hunding-Brunhilde position, the 
Kriemhild Stellung; while east of the Meuse trench a sharp 
attack had gained the Haumont cross ridge, north of the Caures 
Wood ridge, and some additional terrain, thus widening the front 
of attack, relieving the American right flank, and giving greater 
freedom of movement for the main advance. To the west 
the French were forging ahead in the Aisne lowland and the 
Dry Champagne, when the German high command decided 
to withdraw to the Hunding-Brunhilde position on the Aisne 
all along the front as far northwest as Rethel and Chateau- 
Porcien.* The stage was now set for the battle to break the 
last main German defense system west of the Antwerp-Meuse 
Line. 

In continuing the offensive the American right wing was 
directed to press east and north on the eastern side of the Meuse 
trench until it had secured possession of the whole of the Meuse 
plateau barrier, forcing the enemy down into the muddy and 
marshy plain of the Woevre. This ultimately involved an ad- 
vance of certain divisions across the great trench of the Meuse in 
face of heavy fire; but the difficult maneuver was successfully 
performed, usually at night since ordinarily "it was impossible for 
a man ... to move in the river bottom during daylight, so 
intense was the fire from the hills." 18 On the west the left wing 
was to keep in close touch with the main body of the French 
Fourth Army beyond the Argonne barrier through the defiles of 

is Thomas, The History of the A.E.F., p. 344. * Five miles W of Rethel. 



412 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

Grandpre, Quatre Champs, and others to be conquered in the 
advance. As the western limit of the American sector ran approxi- 
mately from south to north while the belts of terrain trend 
southeast-northwest, the Argonne barrier largely passed out of 
American hands in the latitude of Grandpre, into the sector to be 
conquered by the French in their northward progress. 

The last half of October was spent in assaulting the formida- 
ble defenses of the Hunding-Brunhilde-Kriemhild position. 
To cross the great Aire trench through the Argonne and get it 
firmly consolidated in American and French possession was a 
matter of days instead of hours, and the gain was purchased at 
a heavy price. Northwest of the defile the French on either 
side, of Vouziers forced a passage of the Aisne by a surprise 
attack and delivered blow after blow against the western wall 
of the Argonne plateau. By October 20 they had gained a 
foothold on the western edge of the barrier and the Americans 
had advanced a short distance north of the defile on the eastern 
side. But the formidable Aisne-Argonne-Aire barrier was as 
yet unbroken. The Germans were still resisting with the fury of 
desperation in their Hunding-Brunhilde-Kriemhild position. 
The Allies could hold the enemy's counterattacks and seize bits 
of terrain here and there by costly assaults; but days of heavy 
fighting brought little real gain. October 31 found the front but 
slightly changed from its location on October 15. 

A new and more violent offensive was necessary to shatter 
the enemy's opposition and force him to retreat northeastward 
behind the Meuse barrier. That accomplished, the time would 
be ripe for the supreme blow, destined to hurl the invader from 
this, his last organized defensive position in France, and to throw 
him back, beaten and despairing, upon his own soil. The 
natural bridgeheads east of the Meuse and Moselle (pp. 330 and 
482) were perfectly adapted to this maneuver, and the plan 
was already matured in the brain directing the Victory Offensive. 
"The operations in progress," wrote Foch, 'Predesigned to throw 
the enemy back upon the Meuse. . . To shatter his resistance 
on this river, it is desirable to prepare attacks on both sides of 



MEUSE-ARGONNE BATTLE 413 

the Moselle, in the direction of Longwy-Luxemburg on the one 
hand, in the general direction of the Sarre on the other." 

It was on the first, day of November that the American and 
French armies on the Verdun battlefield were hurled afresh 
against the Brunhilde and Kriemhild positions. The Americans 
burst through on the less rugged terrain of the Barrois plateau 
and by evening had advanced northward five miles ; but against 
the Argonne barrier their left flank turned sharply south prac- 
tically to the original starting point. On the western side of the 
plateau, the French smashed through the forest toward the 
eastern side for gains which were unexpectedly large, considering 
the character of the country, until held up by a bitter defense 
of the Fournelle defile at Quatre Champs. But with the Ameri- 
cans pushing rapidly north over the Aire lowland and the Barrois 
plateau, and the French attacking eastward along the defiles of 
the Fournelle, La Croix-aux-Bois, and Le Chesne, the Germans 
in that part of the Argonne plateau bounded by the Aire defile 
at Grandpre on the south and the Le Chesne defile on the north 
were in imminent danger of being cut off. They began a hasty 
retreat. On November 3 the left of the American front had 
advanced ten miles north of Grandpre and the following day 
was opposite the eastern entrance to the Le Chesne defile. 
The Germans had fled from the Argonne as from a trap. 

Henceforth the Allied advance northward over the Battlefield 
of Verdun was rapid and consistent. The demoralization of the 
German armies was proceeding apace, and the despairing appeals 
of their commanders were insufficient to excite them to the 
resistance of which they had been capable a few days before. 
Overwhelmed by the series of unrelieved disasters along the entire 
front, the steel of certain defeat thrust deep into his soul, the 
German soldier could no longer be trusted efficiently to execute 
the orders of his leaders. However, machine-made discipline could 
not disappear in an instant; and along the gorge traversed by the 
canal west of Le Chesne, as along other topographic barriers, stiff 
resistance greeted the pursuers. These were, however, the last 
imperfect responses to stimuli of a dying organism. 



414 BATTLEFIELD OF VERDUN 

On November 4 Ludendorff ordered a retreat along the whole 
front to the Antwerp-Meuse line. But lost confidence, indisci- 
pline, open mutiny were rapidly sapping the strength of the 
German army to a point where neither the strong Meuse barrier 
nor any other obstacle could stave off a catastrophe. By Novem- 
ber 8 the Americans and French had reached the Sedan lowland 
from Mezieres eastward to the junction of the Chiers with the 
Meuse and had cut the vital railway artery which so long main- 
tained the German armies in France; the Americans were 
pressing the enemy along the Meuse barrier from Sedan to 
Stenay and farther south had driven him from his last foothold 
on the Meuse plateau down into the plain of the Woevre. Farther 
southeast in the Woevre the Second American Army was initiat- 
ing an advance designed to outflank Metz from the northwest. 
From the solid base of the Moselle plateau De Castelnau was 
preparing to launch the combined Franco-American offensive 
which on November 14 would sweep northeastward beyond 
Metz, turn that stronghold from the east, outflank the Meuse- 
Antwerp barrier, and give the coup de grace to the fast decaying 
German army. 

The blow never fell, for the armistice of November 11 inter- 
vened. Sedan, symbol of disaster and epitaph of empires, 
marked the last stand of German militarism. When the gray- 
clad invaders turned their backs on the fated city, it was to 
return with a ruined army to a fallen Empire. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE: 
THE CUESTA-AND-MOUNTAIN BATTLEFIELD 

The Moselle plateau, rising on the eastern border of the 
Battlefield of Verdun, marks the western limit of the Battlefield 
of Lorraine. It is the sixth asymmetrical upland traversed in the 
journey eastward from the plateau of the Marne; and still the 
repetition of this striking topographic form continues. For the 
last time resume the long march to France's easternmost frontier, 
and follow the stately procession of uplands and lowlands to its 
end. Far away to the southeast the crest of the high Vosges is 
silhouetted dimly against the horizon. Make this your goal. 

From the forested heights of the Moselle plateau (Fig. 98) 
descend into that smiling lowland of the Seille where somber 
forests of fantastic pattern mottle the green carpet of fields 
"spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain." Here in the shades 
of Champenoux Forest (Fig. 100) many an invader died "for the 
glory of the Fatherland" as shrapnel rained from the heights to 
the west in those memorable first weeks of September, 19 14. 
Southeastward the land slopes gently upward as another lime- 
stone layer rises from beneath the clays of the lowland (Fig. 99). 
Looking from the crest of a new escarpment, which stretches 
away southward in the heights of Saffais (Fig. 101), the floor of 
yet another lowland is seen at your feet (Fig. 102). Wide 
expanses of forest, weirdly irregular lakes, and a maze of rolling 
hills diversify its surface. This is the plain of Lorraine, so broad 
that a long, hard day of forced marching will barely suffice 
to cross it. 

Toward the Vosges the plain rises gently, occasionally dropping 
abruptly over some minor limestone ridge (Fig. 99) only to rise 
as before till the name "plateau" seems more appropriate than 

Note. For Chapters IX and X the reader should constantly consult the detailed 
map of the battlefield in the pocket (PI. V) and the block diagrams (PI. VI and 
Fig. 106). 



416 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

"plain." A dark band appears on the horizon. Another of the 
forest patches so numerous in this belt? Its unusual continuity 
denies this explanation. Without a break it stretches northeast 
and southwest as far as the eye can reach. Climb some hill 
in the plain, and the majestic sweep of this vast woodland belt 
only becomes the more impressive. You remember the Argonne, 
and watching the ground beneath your feet you plunge into the 
gloomy wilderness. 

Quickly the question, half formulated in your mind, is an- 
swered. It is sandstone upon which you are walking, just as in 
the Argonne Forest. Unconsciously other points of comparison 
suggest themselves, and the eye dwells upon the same steep- 
sided ridges, the same tabular uplands, the same dark ravines 
which made the other sandstone plateau so formidable. This 
time, however, the forest is of spruce; and, when the crest is 
reached, there is nothing to suggest the remarkably straight front 
of the Argonne escarpment. Rather the margin is frayed into a 
ragged complex of bays and peninsulas, beyond which outlying 
masses are numerous and of varied dimensions. 

The lowland beyond is quite unlike anything seen before. 
It is a valley rather than a lowland, and its eastern wall is not 
only abrupt but reveals curiously irregular and hummocky slopes. 
Descending the forested sandstone scarp, you read the answer to 
the riddle in the rock ledges projecting through the soil. You 
have passed the last plateau and lowland of the sedimentary 
rocks and stand on the fundamental crystalline basement upon 
which the sediments were deposited in layers many millions of 
years before. From the plateau of the Marne (Fig. 99, key sec- 
tion) across the Battlefield of Verdun and finally over the Battle- 
field of Lorraine you have descended without a break from the 
higher beds of the Paris Basin to the lowest, and now behold the 
platform of crystalline rocks which underlies them all. Like the 
sediments above, the platform too is tilted downward toward the 
west and rises eastward in a slope so gentle that you may fail to 
realize for the moment that you have in fact crossed the "sand- 
stone Vosges" mountains and stand in the first valley of the 



GENERAL ASPECT 



4i7 




Fig. 98 — Generalized sketch map of the Battlefield of Lorraine. White areas 
are lowlands, ruled areas uplands, and cross-ruled areas mountains. For the 
topographic details and place names referred to in the text see Pis. V and VI 
and Fig. 106. 

"crystalline Vosges" which culminate at elevations of nearly 
5,000 feet a few miles to the southeast. 



4i8 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 



The last stage of the journey is the most beautiful of all. Up 
the long valley of one of the larger mountain streams which 
open a pathway to the crest, you pass between green fields 
flanked with sloping walls of forest or pasture. At first the walls 
are low (Fig. 103) but gradually they rise higher, terminating 
above in even-crested summits which suggest a trenched plateau 
much more strongly than a mountain range (Fig. 104). Verdant 
meadows dotted with pleasant shade trees and picturesque dwell- 
ings rise high on the open valley walls or slope down to the very 



Cotes 
deMosef/e Xantois(soutn) 



L o r r a 1 n e 




Moselle Plateau *Jeil/e-/antois\Saffiiis^ 

~ Lowland ^Plateau* 



Plain of Lorraine. 



-J*-— 



Fig. 99 — -Ideal northwest-southeast section across the Battlefield of Lorraine, showin 
tains, and the Rhine valley. Names used in the text are given below, certain of the Frenc 
of the Battlefields of the Marne (Fig. 58) and Verdun (Fig. 78) and forms a continuous croa 



edge of the sparkling mountain stream. You are in a veritable 
paradise where the cotton and paper factories of the villages seem 
strangely out of place. 

Above the valley head rises a rounded grassy dome (Fig. 105) 
which you gain with little difficulty, hoping to glimpse at last the 
mountain summits that seem forever to elude your view. 
Instead, the same pleasing but uniform landscape stretches far 
to the north, west, and south. Eastward, you seem to look off 
into space. Nowhere are the mountain peaks of the "Hautes 
Vosges" visible. You stroll across the grassy knob toward the 
east — -and an abyss yawns at your feet! Rocky precipices fall 
sheer to where a tiny lake sparkles in the depths far below, a 
gleam of turquoise in the dark forests mantling the base of the 
crags. Short valleys cut the base of the range into shreds and 
open out upon the plain of the Rhine. Far beyond, the Belchen 



STRATEGIC POSITION 419 

and the Feldberg rear their heads above the Black Forest. With- 
out any "mountain climbing," indeed without appreciating the 
higher elevations attained, you have ascended the gentle western 
slope of the Vosges to its main crest, and stand on the brink of its 
steep eastern face. 

On a grand scale Nature has here repeated for the last time 
the pattern she evidently adopted for all of northeastern France : 
an asymmetrical upland with a gentle slope toward Paris and a 
precipitous scarp toward Germany. We shall discover, however, 



ano/stone Vosges X- Crystalline Vosges ^Jjf>we_^ 

ation of rock structures to asymmetrical plateaus (cuestas), lowlands, the Vosges Moun- 
?ional names above. The key shows the relation of this cross-section to the cross-sections 
ction from the Marne plateau to the Black Forest. 

that the outermost wall of the natural defenses of Paris owes its 
asymmetrical form to a geological history strikingly different 
from the simple story of erosion on inclined beds which sufficed 
to explain the asymmetrical plateaus farther west. 

Strategic Position of the Battlefield of Lorraine 

The Battlefield of Lorraine lies at the intersection of several 
great lines of movement across the continent of Europe. From 
the higher land within its limits the broad basin of the Rhine 
leads northward toward the North Sea and the shores of the 
Baltic, that of the Saone-Rhone depression southward to 
the Mediterranean. Westward the rivers point the way to 
Paris and the Atlantic Ocean, while the Danube gateway to 
the east has its western threshold just beyond the valley of the 
Rhine. Between the south and the north, between the east and 



420 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




STRATEGIC POSITION 421 

the west, from time immemorial important routes of migration, 
invasion, and commercial traffic have traversed the rectangular 
area within which lie headwaters of the Rhine, Seine, and 
Rhone. The natural corridors of this terrain have echoed to 
the tramp of armed hordes from the earliest dawn of history. 
The region "was, in a sense, the commercial and political axis 
of the Gauls." 1 Today canals connecting the Rhine with the 
Seine, the Rhine with the Rhone, and the Seine with the Rhone, 
cross the lowland divides which flank the Vosges highland, and 
several lines of transcontinental railway follow the valleys and 
plains. The Battlefield of Lorraine thus lies at a nucleus of inter- 
national routes of more than ordinary importance. 

The Vosges Mountains fail to meet the Jura Mountains and 
the border of Switzerland by some 15 or 20 miles. Thus is 
formed the famous Belfort gateway, easily traversed by a canal, 
railroads, and several highways. "This pass, broad and low (305 
meters, or 1,148 feet) marks the insignificant summit in the great 
historic route of travel between the Mediterranean and the North 
Sea, from the days of ancient Etruscan merchants to the present. 
This was the route of the invading Teuton hordes which the 
Roman Marius defeated at Aquae Sextiae and, later, of the 
Germans under Ariovistus, whom Caesar defeated near the 
present Miilhausen. Four centuries afterward came the Ala- 
mannians, Burgundians, and other Teutonic stocks, who infused 
a tall blond element into the population of the Rhone Valley. 
The Pass of Belfort is the strategic key to Central Europe. Here 
Napoleon repeatedly fixed his military base for the invasion of 
Austria, and hither was directed one division of the German 
army in 1870 for the invasion of France." 2 

On the north the Vosges descend to a comparatively low gap of 
much greater breadth which separates ithem from the mountains of 
western Germany and the Ardennes of Belgium. This is the Lor- 
raine gateway, the most dangerous opening on the French fron- 
tier, and the route utilized by the Germans for their principal 

1 P. Vidal de la Blache: La France de l'Est (Lorraine-Alsace), Paris, 1917, p. 14. 

2 E. C. Semple: Influences of Geographic Environment, New York, 1911, p. 540. 



422 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 







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STRATEGIC POSITION 



423 




424 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

invasion in 1870. Since that unhappy chapter in history it has 
been a fundamental thesis of French military reasoning that in a 
new war the Lorraine gateway would certainly be one of the 
chief openings, if not the chief, through which their enemy 
would strike. To meet the menace French strategists proposed 
an offensive in Alsace launched through the Belfort gateway 
and the Vosges passes, coupled with a simultaneous offensive 
through the Lorraine gap. 

The Battlefield of Lorraine, in the broad sense in which it is 
used here, includes both the Belfort and Lorraine gateways 
and the mountain barrier which separates them. It was thus 
by nature destined to be the scene of important maneuvers in the 
first days of the war, through which the grand strategy of the 
opposing staffs gradually revealed itself. On this field France 
quickly massed the bulk of her forces, and from it she promptly 
launched her armies through the Belfort and Lorraine gateways. 
And while events were soon to demonstrate that the latter gap 
was not the chief danger spot, neither in its southern portion 
east of Nancy nor yet on its northern border from Metz to 
Luxemburg, where the principal enemy concentrations were 
first supposed to be massing, as one of the important routes of 
attack it claimed the attention of the world until the supreme 
effort of the eastern German armies to enter France by this door 
was finally and decisively defeated. 

Facing the Lorraine gateway on the west are the frowning 
scarps of the Meuse and Moselle plateaus, backed by other 
barriers the great strength of which we have considered in 
earlier chapters. Thus, while the gateway was wide open, the 
route directly west was barred. Southwestward, however, 
between the walls of the plateau barrier and the Vosges Moun- 
tains, stretches the broad plain of Lorraine and the compara- 
tively low country of the subordinate plateau and lowland at 
the base of the Moselle scarp. In this direction lay an easy route 
to the Saone-Rhone depression, containing some of the vital 
industrial centers of France, and to the great arsenals and arms 
factories of the Creusot district. The position of the Franco- 



STRATEGIC POSITION 425 

German frontier, obliquely athwart the grain of the terrain (Fig. 
98) from the northern end of the Vosges to the backslope of the 
Moselle plateau, placed the German armies squarely in front of 
the "Charmes Trough." This natural runway, because of its 
length better called a trough than a gateway, is one of the most 
striking strategic features of eastern France; and that there must 
be a "Bataille de la Trouee de Charmes" was long an accepted 
principle in French military reasoning. 

In an earlier chapter (p. 328) we have seen that the whole 
scheme of defense of France's eastern frontier was based on the 
fortification of the Meuse-Moselle plateau massifs on the north 
(Verdun-Toul line) and the Vosges massif on the south (Epinal- 
Belfort line), leaving the Charmes Trough as the only practica- 
ble route for the enemy invasion (Fig. 83). With the enemy 
confined to a known route and menaced on both flanks by dan- 
gerous strongholds sheltering large forces of mobile troops, the 
main armies of France could deal with the invasion to the best 
possible advantage. To meet the shock of enemy masses 
launched along the Charmes Trough, the French could utilize 
a succession of strong defensive positions provided by the river 
trenches, particularly those of the Meurthe, Mortagne, and 
Moselle, which traverse the lower country from the Vosges 
mountains to the plateau barriers. Entrenched behind these 
natural moats, which in. the cases of the Mortagne and Moselle 
are bordered on the southwest by higher ground commanding 
the approaches to the barriers, the Armies of the Republic could 
hope to contain the enemy offensive, and then from the strong 
natural positions on the plateaus and in the Vosges to launch 
counteroffensives against the enemy's flanks which would 
complete the victory. Thus in a variety of ways was the Battle- 
field of Lorraine designed to be the key to the defense of France. 

When the invasion of Belgium opened the northern frontier 
of France to the enemy, the French staff was compelled to alter 
the whole plan of the national defense. The Battlefield of Lor- 
raine occupied a different but important place in the new scheme. 
Joffre's conception of a strategic retreat to the Seine while 



426 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




STRATEGIC POSITION 



427 







42 8 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




SURFACE FEATURES 429 

pivoting on Verdun could pave the way to ultimate victory only 
in case the right wing of the Allied line was not turned by an 
enemy break-through south of Verdun or on the Lorraine 
plain. On the other hand, the German plan to roll up the 
Allied front by a turning movement at both ends depended 
for its success as much upon the outcome of the eastern attack as 
upon Von Kluck's great sweep around to the west. For both of 
the belligerents, therefore, one of the keys to the strategy of the 
Marne lay along the Moselle. That France won the key, and 
hence the victory, was due in no small measure to an intelligent 
use of topographic barriers on the important battlefield located on 
the Lorraine frontier. We may now turn our consideration to the 
several belts of terrain which together constitute the exception- 
ally interesting Battlefield of Lorraine. 

Surface Features of the Battlefield of Lorraine 

the moselle plateau 

Let us recall for a moment the salient features of the asymmet- 
rical plateau known to geographers as the "Moselle cuesta." As 
we noted in our survey of the Battlefield of Verdun, the plateau 
owes its existence to a resistant limestone formation (Fig. 99) 
rising gradually from beneath the clays of the Woevre lowland to 
the west and terminating eastward in a precipitous escarpment. 
Deeply trenched by the gorges of the Ache, the Terrouin, the 
Moselle, and the headwaters of the Meuse, and by innumerable 
smaller ravines into whose narrow but deep recesses the rays of 
the sun never penetrate, the limestone upland is cut into more 
or less isolated tablelands of varying size. The forms common to 
calcareous rocks in other regions reassert themselves in the 
topography of the Haye, as the plateau is called from south of 
Nancy to the northern limit of the region now considered, and in 
the plateau of Langres, as we may call its more southern portion. 
Sink holes occur, though not so abundantly as in some limestone 
regions. Subterranean caverns and grottoes abound, some of 
them ol great extent, like the famous cave of Sainte Reine and the 



430 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

cave of the Celts southeast of Toul, probably used as places of 
refuge by prehistoric man. Profound chasms or narrow clefts 50 
to 100 feet deep with vertical walls seam the surface, many of 
them renowned as natural wonders, like the "Depths of Toul," the 
"Pocket," and the "Valley of St. Amond" trenched in the plateau 
west and southwest of Nancy. 3 Like the upland surface itself, 
some of the chasms and ravines and occasionally larger valleys 
may be dry and arid, because the rain which falls on the plateau 
quickly escapes downward through fissures and caverns until 
checked by the marls and clays below. A detailed map will reveal 
a number of these deserted valleys, especially in the sector be- 
tween the Moselle gorge near Nancy and the headwater branches 
of the Meuse, where the dry valleys of the Arr and the Aroffe are 
noted examples. The "lost rivers" which pursue their courses in 
subterranean passages may reappear as streams in the lower 
parts of the valleys or simply as abundant springs gushing forth 
in some neighboring gorge which cuts down to the contact of 
the impervious marls and clays. It is evident that a plateau 
dissected into tablelands traversed by such a series of gorges, 
ravines, dry valleys, vertical chasms and fissures is a topographic 
obstacle of serious proportions. 

The course taken by the Moselle River, while cutting a doubb 
gateway through the plateau, does not materially decrease the 
military value of the barrier. South of Nancy the river enters 
the face of the escarpment and traverses the whole breadth 
of the barrier in a wild, narrow gorge on its way to the Toul gap 
where it formerly entered the Meuse River (Fig. 91). Just before 
reaching Toul it turns sharply back to the northeast, retraversing 
the plateau in another gorge determined by the stream which cut 
through the barrier and diverted the Moselle to its present 
course. As a result of the river capture we find this portion of the 
Moselle plateau protected by a great natural fortress of triangular 
shape, each side 12 miles long, the southwestern and northwestern 
sides defended by deep natural moats through which runs an 
unfordable river, the eastern side by the steep escarpment facing 

3 Bertrand Auerbach: Le plateau lorrain: Essai de geographie regionale, Paris, 
1893, p. 166. 



MOSELLE PLATEAU 431 

an exposed lowland crossed by a canal south of Nancy and by 
the gorge of the Meurthe farther north. Completely surround- 
ed by water, its arid upland difficult of access, seamed with 
chasms and cloaked with the vast Forest of Haye, the triangular 
massif which in earlier days was the secure retreat of wild beasts 
and lawless men, is in modern times a solid buttress of an impor- 
tant line of defense against hostile aggression. Its strategic im- 
portance is much increased by the fact that it lies at the inter- 
section of highly important routes of travel, each of the three sides 
being skirted by railroad, highway, and canal. At each corner of 
the triangle we find one or more modern forts. Those at the west 
form part of the defenses of Toul. Fort St. Barbe or Pont St. 
Vincent, near the southeast corner but across the river on a 
cleared plateau spur, sweeps the railways, roads, and canals 
approaching the entrance to the gorge. Fort Frouard at the 
northeast corner controls another plexus of railway, road, and 
canal routes converging on this entrance to the gorge and domi- 
nates the course of the lower Moselle for many miles. 

Grand Couronne de Nancy 

After contouring the triangular Haye Forest massif, the 
Moselle in its northward course does not lie in the great lowland 
east of the plateau scarp, but, like the Meuse, trenches the 
backslope of the upland just west of the escarpment in such 
manner as to leave a narrow strip of the highland forming a 
natural bridgehead east of the river (Figs. 79 and 98). As 
the Moselle lies closer to the scarp than does the Meuse, the 
detached plateau strip is much narrower than in the Meuse case; 
at the north it is a mere ridge, often broken by erosion into 
detached buttes and mesas; but nearer Nancy it suddenly 
expands into an eastward projecting bastion measuring half a 
dozen miles from the river to its apex (Fig. 106). This outlying 
strip of the Moselle plateau is known among French military 
geographers as the "Grand Couronne de Nancy." The incalcula- 
ble strategic value of this natural bridgehead fortress in the 
defense of France's eastern frontier will appear in the sequel. 



432 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




Fig. 106 — Block diagram of the Nanc; 



MOSELLE PLATEAU 



433 




g the salient features of the terrain. 



434 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




MOSELLE PLATEAU 



435 







436 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




MOSELLE PLATEAU 437 

Like the Meuse plateau bridgehead in the vicinity of St. Mihiel 
and Commercy (PI. VI), the Grand Couronne is repeatedly 
breached by transverse stream valleys. Two of these just north 
of Nancy carry railways and highways from the lowland on the 
east through the projecting upland bastion to the Moselle gorge 
(Fig. 106). Next to the north the valley of the Natagne (Fig. 
107) almost but not completely breaches the bastion, and a 
road crosses from east to west through the depression. North of 
the Natagne the remaining slice of the bastion forms Mont Tou- 
lon ridge and Ste. Genevieve plateau (Fig. 106). Then comes a 
broad opening through which an important highway leads from 
the frontier to the river at Pont-a-Mousson. We may call this 
gap the Pont-a-Mousson gateway, and the Ste. Genevieve plateau 
(Fig. 108) and Mousson butte (Fig. 109) the two pillars guarding 
it on either side. From Mousson northward the Grand Couronne 
is continued as a narrow strip of plateau divided by erosion gaps 
into the butte of Xon and two north-south ridges (Fig. 91), the 
northernmost of which carries two of the forts defending Metz. 

The analogy with the Meuse plateau barrier can be traced 
further and reveals itself in the military operations as well as in 
the form of the terrain. Just as Verdun was defended against an 
attack coming from the north by the transverse ridges or upland 
strips and the ravines paralleling them which resulted from the 
erosive work of small streams tributary to the Meuse, so Nancy 
has as its system of northern defenses the succession of east-west 
plateau strips and valley trenches carved by tributaries of the 
Moselle. And just as the Germans first threatened Verdun from 
the east by moving against the face of the Meuse escarpment, and 
then tried an advance from the north upstream across the trans- 
verse lateral ridges, so the original attack on the scarps defending 
Nancy on the east was followed by an upriver advance directed 
from the north against the parallel strips of the Moselle plateau. 
In both cases the second operation, like the first, was a failure. 
The most striking difference in form between the two terrains is 
the absence of a continuous plateau barrier east of Nancy. As a 
consequence of this greater exposure to an attack from the east 



43« 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




MOSELLE PLATEAU 439 

the campaign against Nancy involved more important operations 
from that direction, with the result that the bastions and curtains 
of the Moselle plateau played a much more important role in the 
fighting than did those of the Meuse plateau. 

The Moselle trench, like the Meuse, provides a valuable lateral 
line of communications behind the defensive positions on the 
Grand Couronne and, in case of the loss of the latter, a natural 
moat behind which an army might long defend itself. Along the 
trench run a railroad, canal, and two important highways bor- 
dered by furnaces, factories, and quarries and dominated by 
vineyard-clad slopes terminating above in wooded cliffs. Toward 
Metz, as also toward Nancy, the trench is a narrow gorge; but 
between these sectors is a more open valley where the river 
wanders over a flood plain a mile or two broad covered with 
natural prairies. Whether narrow or broad, the Moselle trench is 
a difficult obstacle to cross under enemy fire from the western 
crest; and the fact that this crest is so largely forested deprives 
the holder of the eastern bank of part of the advantage he would 
enjoy from the fact that that bank is often the higher of the two. 
As the Moselle trench is not nearly so serpentine as that of the 
Meuse, projecting points give observation and artillery control 
over long stretches of the river and its crossings. 

Isolated mesas and buttes, detached from the Moselle plateau 
by erosion, stand in front of the main escarpment at many points. 
The butte of Vaudemont, about 20 miles southwest of Nancy, the 
V-shape of which cannot fail to impress the observer with its 
bastion form, rises more than 700 feet above the lowland. It was 
early selected as the site of a castle which dominated a vast 
expanse of the plain below and became the political center of the 
region. 4 Mont d'Amance and the Pain de Sucre (Fig. 106), out- 
lying mesa and butte guarding the approaches to the Grand 
Couronne, played a leading role in the defense of Nancy in 1914. 

Form of Plateau Profile 
The form of the plateau profile renders it admirably adapted 
to defense. The limestone cap weathers into steep slopes, vertical 

* Auerbach, Le plateau lorrain, p. 235. 



440 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

walls, or even overhanging cliffs, which make the level upland 
extremely difficult of access. This development of a cornice 
just above the gentler slopes eroded on the weak marls and clays 
is much more striking in the Moselle plateau scarp than in any 
of the other examples we have studied. From Nancy southward 
the scarp is double, an intervening bed of weaker material 
separating it into an upper and a lower terrace. On the other 
hand the lower declivities may be more gently inclined and 
of more uniform slope than usual, while the soil conditions are 
not unlike those encountered along the Marne plateau scarp. 
Limestone fragments from the cap rock mix with the clay below 
to give a surface deposit admirably adapted to grape culture, 
fruit growing, and vegetable gardening. Even when not steep 
enough to deserve the adjective "precipitous," the upper slope is 
usually much too steep to be cultivated and is therefore covered 
with trees and bushes (Figs. 108 and no). This assures to the 
defense several important advantages. Observation posts exca- 
vated in the steep rock face and reinforced in front for greater 
safety are hidden by a natural camouflage of trees which prevents 
the enemy from concentrating fire for their destruction. The 
enemy knows that he is being watched from that crown of wood- 
land; but where along its length the eyes are hidden he cannot 
tell. Hence, the observers can survey enemy defenses, batteries, 
and troop operations, and direct their own artillery fire in compar- 
ative quiet (Fig. in). The one chance shot out of thousands 
which might happen to strike a vulnerable spot in one of these 
posts does not cause much anxiety. At the base of the steep slope 
the woods offer concealment for machine-gun positions, from 
which the cleared expanse below (Fig. 108), sloping gently down- 
ward to the plain, may be swept with a hail of bullets driving 
parallel with the surface. Such a grazing fire being far more 
deadly than a plunging fire from the heights above, it is essential 
that the base of the steep slope should be made easily accessible 
from the upland. This is readily accomplished by tunnels 
through which the machine-gun detachments can quickly man 
their positions in case of attack or retire safely at the last moment 



MOSELLE PLATEAU 



441 



in case they fail to check the enemy (Fig. 1 1 1). The forest cover, 
which owes its continued existence to the steepness of the upper 
slope, affords valuable concealment to the men carrying on the 
tunneling operations and to the tunnel exits and gun emplace- 
ments when completed. If the surface of the plateau is cleared, 
the trees on the steep slope often rise high enough to form a 
screen concealing from direct enemy observation all movements 
on the upland. Such a screen is also well developed along parts 




Fig. hi — Diagram to illustrate how the forest cover of the steep upper slope of 
the Moselle plateau scarp conceals from the enemy's direct view: all operations on 
the plateau surface (s) ; observation posts (o) from which there is an unobstructed 
line of vision (v) to the enemy's positions, permitting perfect control of indirect 
artillery fire from batteries (b) hidden in ravines in the plateau; and machine-gun 
nests (m) at the base of the cliff which are connected by tunnel (t) with the upland, 
and from which the gentle lower slopes may be swept by a grazing fire (g) , much more 
effective than a plunging fire (p) from the crest. 

of the Saffais and Meuse plateau margins (Fig. 112) and in the 
case of the Marne plateau led Sir John French to complain of the 
advantages it afforded the Germans occupying the upland north 
of the Aisne. 

Natural Bastions and Curtains 

In plan the Moselle plateau, like that of the Meuse, shows a 
succession of projecting points, or "bastions," alternating with re- 
entrant angles, or "curtains" (Fig. 91 and PI. V). Starting from 
the north we have first the Pont-a-Mousson curtain, corre- 
sponding in more than one respect with the Commercy curtain of 
the Meuse plateau. Then comes the bastion which we may name 
the Amance bastion from the vitally important mesa, Mont 



442 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




MOSELLE PLATEAU 443 

d'Amance, near its apex. The Nancy curtain is bordered on the 
south by a slightly projecting spur of the Haye Forest massif 
referred to by French military writers as the Heights of Ludres, 
and which for convenience we may call the Ludres bastion. Next 
south is a broad curtain dominated by the centrally located Mont 
d'Anon butte, beyond which a great bastion projects far forward 
to terminate in the Vaudemont and other buttes. We may call 
this the Vaudemont bastion, including by this designation not 
merely the bastion form of the triangular butte itself but the 
whole forward-projecting mass of the upland. Beyond the cur- 
tain of Chatenois to the south the border of the plateau is of more 
even alignment. Against a frontal attack these natural bastions 
and curtains would oppose many of the difficulties which on a 
smaller scale the similar features of an artificial fortress were 
intended to occasion. 

If we add to all that has been said above these further facts: 
that the Moselle plateau throughout the region now under dis- 
cussion is almost everywhere heavily forested, the cleared areas 
occupying but a very small fraction of its upland surface; that the 
hill slopes and valley walls are frequently honeycombed with 
quarries and caverns from which stone for building, paving, and 
other purposes has been extracted for centuries; that the plateau 
scarps are "crowned with a precious diadem" of iron ore just below 
the limestone cap which not only turns the lowland and valleys 
into industrial regions dotted with mines and furnaces but pro- 
vides along the margins of the upland underground galleries and 
chambers of very great value as elements in military defense 
works; and that the rugged, dry, infertile upland repels man to the 
point of causing him to seek even the margin of the inhospitable 
Woevre for a smoother surface, accessible water supplies, and 
less intractable soil; if we add these elements to our picture of the 
Moselle plateau, it must be apparent that it presents to a hostile 
army an obstacle of impressive magnitude. From the earliestdays 
the defensive value of this remarkable terrain has always appealed 
strongly to the imagination of man. There is evidence that dif- 
erent points along the Cotes de Moselle were occupied and forti- 



444 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




fied in the Stone Age 
and in the Iron Age. 
The Celts and other 
early tribes built 
defense works, traces 
of which are still 
visible on the pro- 
jecting bastion of 
the plateau near Ste. 
Genevieve. 5 Doubt- 
less the Romans 
tested the defensive 
value of the terrain 
during the conquest 
of Gaul; and cer- 
tainly the castles of 
the Middle Ages 
took advantage of 
the strong points 
which Nature of- 
fered, ready-made, 
all along the scarp. 
When the modern 
invaders assaulted 
this barrier, they 
were but repeating 
on a grander scale 
a drama frequently 
rehearsed upon the 
same stage. 

THE SEILLE-XANTOIS 
LOWLAND 

Eastward from the 
base of the Moselle 

5 Auerbach, Le plateau 
lorrain, p. 283. 



SEILLE-XANTOIS LOWLAND 445 

plateau scarp extends a lowland some five to ten miles broad in 
the northern part, less than half that breadth from Nancy south- 
ward. This lowland is a unit as to origin, for throughout its whole 
extent it is developed on the weaker marls and the clays or shales 
coming to the surface from under the Moselle plateau limestone 
(Fig. 99) . It is a unit also in its military significance, for it is the 
exposed belt which an enemy attacking from the east must every- 
where traverse under the dominating observation and artillery fire 
from the western heights before he can even begin the attack on 
the Moselle plateau barrier. But the northern and southern parts 
of the lowland show different breadths, are drained in different 
directions, and exhibit certain differences of surface form. 

The Seille lowland, extending from Metz southward to the 
vicinity of Nancy, resembles the Woevre plain in its general 
appearance, especially when looked down upon from the plateau 
scarp. There are the same broad expanses of plain mottled with 
large and small areas of forest (Fig. 113); the same white ribbons 
of roads, often bordered by rows of evenly spaced trees offering 
excellent ranging marks for artillery (Figs. 82 and 114) ; the same 
sluggish streams wandering through natural prairies or marshy 
flats. But the ground is more undulating than the typical Woevre 
plain, and a closer inspection reveals the fact that the Seille 
River occupies a meandering valley like that of the Meuse, 
except that it is entrenched very slightly below the general level 
of the plain. 

The numberless lakes which diversify the humid region of the 
Woevre are lacking in the lowland of the Seille. Not, however, 
that the clay fails to perform its normal r61e of retaining moisture 
near the surface. In wet seasons the roads of the Seille depres- 
sion are boggy, and the forest patches frequently mark areas 
where the cold, resistant clay projects entirely through the thin 
surface covering of loam, giving lands wholly unfit for agriculture. 

The Seille River drains a part of the lowland northward to the 
Moselle at Metz. From Nancy southward the lowland is for the 
most part drained by streams flowing transversely across it, and is 
known as "the Vermois" region for the narrow section between 



446 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




SAFFAIS PLATEAU 447 

the Meurthe and Moselle, and as "the Xantois" south of the 
Moselle. Here the lowland is not only much narrower than 
in the Seille region but is less marshy because the rivers and 
their branches have cut more deeply into the surface. Instead 
of being a flat plain, the lowland is here a maze of low rounded 
hills rising to a common level, dominated on the west by the 
much higher plateau scarp. The rivers Madon and Brenon, which 
drain parts of the Xantois northward, have cut their channels 
between 100 and 200 feet into the floor of the depression. 

Better drainage and other factors combine to render the 
Xantois-Seille lowland a more productive country than the 
Woevre lowland to the west. Layers of limestone included with 
the clays enrich the soil, and phosphate nodules are sufficiently 
abundant in places to be mined for fertilizer. Sandy alluvium, 
including debris washed down from the Vosges, extends as a 
covering over parts of the surface, and above all is a thin coating 
of loam. Thus we have a richer subsoil than usual, and a fertile 
porous topsoil which permits water to sink below the surface, 
yet is kept sufficiently moist by the presence of clays a few feet 
down. The favorable soil conditions and the fairly good drain- 
age assured through the moderate trenching cf the floor of the 
lowland by stream valleys, together make this belt "the granary 
of Lorraine." Most of the lowland is cleared and cultivated, 
and an army occupying it for a period of years, as did the 
Germans from 1914 to 1918, could count upon large quantities of 
food from the fields and of fodder from the natural prairies on the 
river flood plains. 

THE SAFFAIS PLATEAU 

Rising gradually toward the east from under the weaker 
formations of the Seille-Xantois lowland is a bed of resistant 
impure limestone (Fig. 99) which, following the usual rule, forms 
an asymmetrical plateau having a gentle westward slope and 
terminating eastward in a steeper escarpment. This plateau is 
lower in elevation, more irregular in form, and much less striking 
in appearance than its western neighbors and has no single name 



448 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

by which it is commonly known. One section of it which played 
a prominent role in the Battle of the Grand Couronne is called 
the Heights of Saffais (Fig. 101); and for the sake of con- 
venience in referring to the topographic feature as a whole we 
will call it the Saffais cuesta or plateau, fully recognizing, how- 
ever, that the French use the term for a much more restricted 
area. 

The crest of the Saffais plateau is usually between ioo and 200 
feet lower than the Moselle plateau and rises only 200 to 300 
feet above the lowland east of it. Yet even this modest eleva- 
tion is sufficient to assure commanding observation over the 
lower country, as any one looking eastward from the crest will 
quickly perceive (Figs. 102 and 115). Unlike the higher plateaus 
on purer and more massive limestone formations, the Saffais 
upland is neither extremely dry nor extremely infertile and is 
not made difficult of access by wild, deep gorges. Consequently 
much of its surface is cleared and cultivated, although a fringe 
of trees on the upper slopes of the east-facing scarp often rises 
high enough to conceal forces maneuvering on the upland from 
the view of an enemy advancing across the lowland (Fig. 112). 
Finally, the scarp is ordinarily only of moderate steepness (Fig. 
101) and dissected into a succession of spurs which bear only a 
mild resemblance to the great walls of the Cotes de Meuse and 
Cotes de Moselle. Assuredly the Saffais plateau, while a serious 
military obstacle, is far less formidable than the examples 
previously studied. 

Natural Bastions and Curtains 

The extreme irregularity of the eastern margin of this plateau 
often makes it difficult to tell where to draw the boundary be- 
tween it and the lowland farther east. Long, irregular spurs 
and innumerable buttes, isolated and in groups, might be re- 
garded as carrying the upland far eastward toward the margin 
of the Vosges in places; just as broad and deep valley re-entrants 
force it back westward close to the Moselle plateau in others. 
If we restrict consideration to the more perfectly developed por- 



SAFFAIS PLATEAU 449 

tions of the plateau, we may recognize that its margin contours 
a succession of projecting bastions and re-entrant curtains of 
very pronounced type (Fig. 98). Thus southeast of Metz the 
upper Nied and its tributaries (Fig. 106) have eroded a re-entrant 
which we may conveniently call the Nied valley curtain. Then 
from the vicinity of Chateau-Salins there project a dozen miles or 
more northeastward into the plain two remarkable plateau spurs, 
long and narrow in form and separated by a branch of the Seille 
River called the Little Seille. As the town of Morhange (Mor- 
chingen) lies at the southern base of the northern spur, and 
Dieuze just south of the southern spur, we may call the whole 
projecting mass formed by the two walls and their included 
valley the Morhange-Dieuze bastion. To the south the scarp 
swings back to the west of Arracourt, giving a deep curtain which 
we may designate by the name of that town. 

The plateau crest continues southwestward as the "Rembe- 
tant" to the gateway of the Meurthe River at St. Nicolas-du- 
Port, beyond which it is equally distinct in the Heights of 
Saffais. But if we restricted our consideration to the most per- 
fectly developed part of the scarp, we should ignore an extremely 
important outlying mass of hills, detached remnants of the pla- 
teau however much erosion may have altered their form, which 
from near the edge of the scarp at Dombasle project eastward 
to the Forest of Parroy with an advance guard in the ridge north 
of Manonviller. As the apex of this bastion is defended by the 
outlying Fort Manonviller, located near the eastern end of the 
ridge referred to and dominating the main route from Strassburg 
and Saarburg into France, we may call the projecting mass the 
Manonviller bastion. On the north this bastion is protected by 
the natural moat of the Sanon valley followed by the Marne- 
Rhine Canal, on the south by the valley of the Vezouse River, a 
stream which pursues its devious, serpentine course through open 
meadows on a marshy flood plain. 

In the deep re-entrant which follows to the south are located 
the towns of Luneville, Blainville, and Rosieres. As Luneville 
is by far the most important, we will call this re-entrant the 



45o 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




SAFFAIS PLATEAU 451 

Luneville curtain. It is followed on the south by a badly dis- 
sected portion of the plateau projecting southeast from the 
Heights of Saffais to terminate in the high Cote d'Essey pro- 
tected from erosion by intrusions of igneous rock, and in the hills 
southwest of Gerbeviller. This Essey bastion is protected on 
the northeast by the natural moat of the Meurthe-Mortagne 
valley and is in its turn succeeded by the very deep curtain of 
Charmes (Fig. 118), almost filled by the great Forest of Charmes, 
just as the Luneville curtain is largely covered by the Forests of 
Vitrimont (Fig. 102), Mondon, and others. Next comes the 
massive, though much dissected, Bouxieres bastion, terminating 
in a high hill just south of the town of Bouxieres and protected 
on the north by the formidable trench of the Moselle River, on 
the south by a branch of the Madon. Beyond this bastion the 
escarpment pursues a well-defined and approximately straight 
course toward the southwest as far as Lamarche, where another 
series of salients and re-entrants begins. These, however, are of 
less immediate interest to us. 

The strongly developed bastion-and-curtain form of the 
Saffais cuesta materially increases its defensive value. Instead 
of attempting to hold the entire length of the escarpment with 
uniformly distributed forces, thereby weakening the defense 
against a concentrated enemy attack, the bastions may be 
strongly held at the expense of the curtains. An enemy attempt- 
ing to continue over the low plain into the less strongly defended 
curtain would subject himself to a flanking fire on both sides 
from the bastion heights commanding all the roads across the 
lowland. As he could not continue until the menace to his 
flanks and rear was removed, he must perforce attack the 
defenders on the exceptionally favorable ground selected and 
organized by them, and must launch his attack from a disad- 
vantageous position on the lower plain. It remains to be noted, 
however, that the presence of large forests in the curtains of 
Luneville and Charmes, where the usual condition is reversed 
and a cleared plateau overlooks a forested lowland, detracts 
from the ease of defense by providing the attackers with cover 



452 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

for their maneuvers. Here the forests are indeed" bandages 
over the eyes of the defenders. 

Cote de Delme 

One feature of the Saffais plateau northeast of Nancy deserves 
particular attention. There is an erosion outlier of the higher 
plateau to the west, left stranded on the very crest of the Saffais 
cuesta and known as the Cote de Delme (Figs. 98 and 113). Its 
exceptionally steep western slope seems to be the result of erosion 
along displacements in the rocks, while its unusual elevation is 
due to the preservation of the higher formations. With its bold 
western front and its commanding observation over the Seille low- 
land, it possessed considerable strategic value for Germany; and it 
is said that in this region the frontier of 187 1 was purposely drawn 
so as to assure to the Empire the military advantages which pos- 
session of the Cote de Delme would confer. The Tincry mesa just 
to the east also retains remnants of the higher formations upon its 
summit. Once in possession of the French, the Cote with its 
steep eastern scarp, together with the mesa, would effectively 
supplement the defense of the Saffais plateau scarp against an 
attack directed along the Nied valley curtain. Its chief potential 
value, however, has been supposed to lie in the possibility of 
utilizing it for defending the flank of a French army invading 
German Lorraine against a sortie from Metz. So long as the 
Delme ridge was in French possession, an army debouching 
southward from Metz to attack the flank of French forces 
would itself be threatened in the flank. 

THE PLAIN OF LORRAINE 

The lowland east of the Saffais cuesta is as a whole less per- 
fectly developed than any of the major lowlands heretofore 
studied. In the first place the overlying limestones belonging 
to the Saffais upland are not completely removed. Numerous 
mesas, buttes, and masses of rolling hills formed of the higher 
rock are scattered over the plain far east of the principal scarp. 
As noted on an earlier page, it is often difficult to tell where to 



PLAIN OF LORRAINE 453 

draw the line between the projecting bastions of the Saffais 
plateau and hills which would better be considered merely as 
erosion remnants on the plain. Secondly, there are limestone 
layers of medium hardness, and at least one of fairly strong resis- 
tance, interstratified with the marls and clays of the lowland. 
These have had the effect of preventing stream erosion from 
reducing this series to a uniform plain. Instead, numerous minor 
terraces or cuestas, and one of fairly pronounced type, diversify 
the surface. In the third place, the near approach to the Vosges 
uplift is betrayed by folds and fractures in the rocks which here 
and there have disturbed the gently inclined beds and caused 
erosion to etch them into relief forms not common to typical 
lowlands. And, finally, the uplifting of the Vosges has permitted 
streams to entrench themselves so deeply that "plateau" seems 
•a more fitting term than "lowland" for the areas on either side of 
the valleys. 

In view of all these circumstances the reader will not be sur- 
prised to find that what is here called the "plain of Lorraine" is 
by others called the "plateau of Lorraine," despite the fact that 
it begins on the west at the base of the Saffais scarp (Fig. 115). 
Some who recognize the northern and southern parts of the belt 
as parts of the same lowland nevertheless designate the central 
portion as the "plateau of Meurthe and Moselle." Nor will the 
reader fail to understand why different authors in describing this 
region fail to agree on the limits of the different belts, particularly 
if he studies a relief map and notes that west of Baccarat a sub- 
sidiary escarpment connects the eastern points of the Essey and 
Manonviller bastions, almost blocking the entrance to the 
Luneville curtain and carrying the higher land practically un- 
broken from the Saffais upland to the Vosges Mountains; that 
only a short distance south the lowland is equally continuous to 
the margin of the Vosges; and that still farther south the same 
surface drops by successive terraces into an amphitheatral 
depression, the dissected margins of which are called the Monts 
Faucilles. Fully recognizing, then, the difficulties of delimiting 
and describing a "lowland" which is often rather high land, 



454 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

let us fix in our mental Image of this region the salient features 
of its varied landscape. 

Effect of Clay Deposits 

Some features are common to the entire belt from its northern 
to its southern limits. The underlying rocks usually give an 
infertile soil containing much clay. In rainy weather roads are 
boggy, and the fields wet and cold. After a series of sunny days 
the earth bakes hard, and as in the Woevre a number of draft 
animals must be hitched to a single plow to drag it through the 
resistant material. Many patches too difficult to cultivate are 
abandoned to forest growth. Where sands and gravels have 
washed down from the Vosges in large quantities, the deposit 
proves too infertile for agriculture, and again we have large areas 
of forest land. The great Forests of Charmes, Vitrimont (Fig. 102), 
and Mondon, as well as the long belt of forest west of the Sarre 
valley from Lorchingen to Saarunion, appear to be of .this origin. 
Altogether the plain of Lorraine has a much larger proportion of 
forest land than the Saffais plateau to the west. Such land as is 
cleared is best adapted to cereals, while the natural prairies along 
the valley bottoms produce excellent hay. It is only natural, 
therefore, that stock raising should form one of the principal oc- 
cupations of the inhabitants, and hence that an invader overrun- 
ning the country could count on replenishing his supply of draft 
animals and meats, rather than his stores of other farm products. 

Where the clay is close to the surface and not deeply dissected 
by stream valleys, stagnant water forms numberless ponds and 
lakes, as in the Woevre. This is particularly true in the northern 
part of the plain, where large, irregular expanses of water make 
the region very difficult to cross. These lakes are utilized as 
reservoirs to feed canals traversing the plain, and, when a suc- 
cession of lakes in the midst of a forest belt are linked together 
by canals, as is the case west of the Sarre valley, the whole forms 
a military barrier of great strength. The fact that basket-making 
is an important industry in the plain, as for example in the coun- 
try north and west of Baccarat, tells the story of marshy and 



PLAIN OF LORRAINE 455 

peaty valleys, overgrown with rushes and bordered by willows; 
while the porcelain factories at Luneville, Sarreguemines (Saar- 
gemund), and other points, as well as the lakes, remind one of the 
vast clay deposits underlying the plain. 

Saline Deposits 

Some of the most characteristic features of the Lorraine plain 
depend on the fact that the rocks contain important deposits 
of various salts. These reach the surface in the form of mineral 
springs famous for their medicinal values, of saline waters which 
may be evaporated to recover their salt contents, or through 
artificial workings for the exploitation of beds of rock salt and 
gypsum, often made more accessible by the faulting or displace- 
ment of the formations. In the south, where that portion of the 
lowland bordering on the east the southern extension of the Saffais 
plateau is called La Vosge (not to be confused with the mountains 
called Les Vosges), it is the mineral waters which make famous 
such resorts as Vittel, Martigny, and Contrexeville. Farther 
north quarries and mines of gypsum and salt dot the country, 
and even the map reveals the situation to the observant. 
Ros'eres-aux-Salines, Chateau-Salins, the Canal des Salines 
repeat in various combinations the telltale termination; while 
the word "saline" alone at many points indicates the presence of 
deposits which have given name to no particular town. We 
encounter the same root in other forms in the name Saulnois 
given to a large portion of the northern part of the plain and 
in Seille, the name of the river which drains it. On the ground 
itself one quickly notes the important industries to which the 
deposits give rise — the plaster and soda factories, salt mines and 
refineries, and chemical establishments of various kinds, upon 
which Rosieres, St. Nicolas du Port, Varangeville, Dombade, 
Einville, Vic, Dieuze, Saaralben, and other villages thrive. 

River Barriers 

Across the plain of Lorraine, from the Vosges on the southeast 
to the plateaus on the northwest, a series of rivers flow in roughly 



456 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

parallel courses. Of these the Moselle is the most important, but 
the Mortagne, Meurthe, and Vezouse carve trenches but slightly 
less impressive. South of the Moselle, the Madon, and, north of 
the Vezouse, the Sanon have smaller valleys capable, if need be, of 
serving as lines of defense, particularly that of the Sanon, which 
carries the Marne-Rhine Canal. But it is the valleys of the three 
major M's, the Moselle, Mortagne, and Meurthe, which provide 
the transverse barriers of chief military importance, an impor- 
tance which was greatly enhanced by the fact that they lay 
parallel to the Franco-German frontier across the plain and 
traversed one of the main topographic depressions (the Charmes 
Trough) inviting hostile invasion. 

Strategic Gateways 

Toward the northeast the plain of Lorraine, rising gently, laps 
around the northern end of the Vosges Mountains and into the 
low saddle separating these mountains from the highlands of 
western Germany and the Ardennes. This is the "Lorraine 
gateway" by which the Germans invaded France in 1870. 
Completely across the gateway, from one mountain pillar to the 
other, runs the trench of the Sarre River, cutting its way directly 
through the Sarre coal basin and its bordering hills, which are due 
to deep erosion of a much disturbed portion of the rock series of 
the plain, just beyond the northern limits of the battlefield. 
Toward the southeast the plain skirts the southern end of the 
Vosges, entering the narrow "Belfort gateway" between the 
Vosges and Jura mountains. This easily defended defile is 
strengthened by the ringed fortress of Belfort, and neither in 
1870 nor in 1914 could it be breached by the Germans. 

Between these two gateways the plain of Lorraine slopes 
gradually upward to merge into the western slope of the great 
Vosges barrier. From beneath the marls and clays with their 
interstratified limestone beds there rise massive beds of sandstone 
which lap up over the crystalline rocks of the range (Fig. 99). 
The sandstone occasionally terminates in an eastern scarp, 
sometimes in two scarps when the formation is broken and 



VOSGES MOUNTAINS 457 

dislocated. But it forms no continuous, easily recognizable pla- 
teau separated from the Vosges by a distinct lowland. On the 
contrary, it is often badly dissected into a maze of sharp-crested 
ridges which merge almost imperceptibly with the crystalline 
hills beyond; or it forms the summits of hills having crystalline 
bases .below. The sandstone gives a soil so infertile that little 
attempt is made to cultivate it. Hence, crossing on to the sand- 
stone formation one crosses into the Vosges Forest. We will draw 
the eastern limit of the Lorraine plain, therefore, where the 
sandstone ridges and unbroken forest begin. 

THE VOSGES MOUNTAINS 

Beneath the great series of sandstones, limestones, marls, 
chalk, and clays responsible for the topographic features we have 
studied on previous pages lies the basement of massive crystalline 
rocks. In the region of the Vosges and eastward the earth's crust 
was raised in a great arch. The crest of this arch was broken by 
two parallel lines of fractures trending northeast-southwest and 
the long, narrow block included between the two fractures 
dropped down several thousand feet. There resulted two 
mountain ranges; the remaining western limb of the arch 
formed the Vosges Mountains, the eastern limb the Schwarz- 
wald, or Black Forest Mountains (cf. small index diagram, Fig. 
99). The down-dropped block between the two constitutes the 
valley of the Rhine from Basel to Mainz. 

Each of the two mountain ranges has strongly contrasted 
slopes. The declivities facing in toward the Rhine trough are 
steep and forbidding, because formed by erosion of the precipi- 
tous fracture faces. On the contrary, the slopes representing 
what remains of the former western and eastern sides of the 
gentle arch naturally show gentle declivities. This explains why 
the Vosges has a gently inclined backslope on the west and a 
steeper eastern face, whereas the Schwarzwald has its gentle back- 
slope on the east and its precipitous scarp toward the west (Fig. 
61). With the Franco-Germanboundarythrownback on the Rhine 
as a result of the World War, an equilibrium of strategic advan- 



458 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 




VOSGES MOUNTAINS 459 

tages is re-established in this region. Each country presents to the 
enemy a mountain wall of formidable steepness, while retaining 
for itself the ability to maneuver on the more gentle backslope. 

Extensive erosion has stripped much of the sedimentary cover 
from the backslope of the Vosges, exposing to view the underlying 
crystallines. It is probable that a goodly part of this erosion was 
accomplished before the arch was lifted to its maximum height 
and before the central block was dropped to form the Rhine 
valley, the original dome first being worn down to a surface of 
faint relief beveling across sediments and crystallines alike. Then, 
when renewed uplift and the fracturing gave the present form, the 
old beveled surface formed a sloping plateau, or "peneplane" 
(almost a plane surface), as the geographer would call it, into 
which renewed erosion has cut deep canyons. It is because of 
this history that the backslope of the Vosges fails to show a 
jagged sky line of craggy peaks of varying height but reveals 
instead, even on the folded and broken crystallines — granites, 
gneisses, and a variety of eruptive rocks — a simple sky line bevel- 
ing indifferently across the most complex structures (Fig. 104). 
The Vosges Mountains are therefore, at least on their gentle 
western slope, of a form less forbidding than many other ranges. 
Had it not been for the stream erosion which has so deeply 
trenched the level upland, one could traverse the western slope in 
any direction with comparative ease. 

Not so the eastern scarp. Here the original fracture surface, 
had it been preserved, would doubtless have proved an abso- 
lutely inaccessible rock wall. It is only thanks to the erosive 
action of streams, which have cut back into it and reduced its 
smooth face to a labyrinth of ravines and ridges (Fig. 116), that 
one may, at cost of considerable labor, scale its acclivities. Not- 
withstanding the modifying and mollifying action of the streams, 
the eastern scarp still remains in strong contrast with the back- 
slope and justifies the description which one traveler gave of the 
crest near the Hohneck more than half a century ago: 

Yesterday in fact, in order to reach the summit of this massive and 
imposing mountain, we were forced to scale it from the Alsatian (eastern) 



460 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

side over enormous barren crags, passing along the base of granite walls 
almost 200 meters high; today, on the contrary, we ascend its (western) 
slope by walking over a smooth field covered with rich pastures and 
reach the crest almost without fatigue. The Lorraine side, where we 
are now, presents almost everywhere this gentle slope — no escarpments 
and few rock ledges; .... on the Alsatian side, on the other hand, scarcely 
is one at the foot of the rounded half-dome which forms the summit 
of the mountain, when its declivity drops abruptly to a depth of between 
ioo and 300 meters; the wooded slopes which succeed the escarpments 
are themselves very steep. As a result the valleys come to crouch, so 
to speak, under the very feet of the spectator. 6 

Effects of Glaciation 

Prior to the glacial period the crest of the eastern slope had 
acquired a somewhat less precipitous character than it shows to- 
day, and the highest summits had been softened by the wearing 
influence of the weather to the rounded forms which the natives 
today call ballons (German: Belchen). This term rather appro- 
priately suggests the form to which it is applied, for one of these 
domelike summits (Fig. 105) resembles not a little the top of an 
inflated balloon: yet, contrary to the popular idea, there is no 
connection between the term ballon applied to the summits of the 
Vosges, and the French word ballon meaning "balloon." In the 
former connection the word should perhaps be spelled baton, and, 
while its derivation is disputed, it may have originated in the 
ancient Celtic cult of Bel or Belus, celebrated upon certain of 
Vosges summits. 7 

Be this as it may, when the glacial period gripped the Vosges 
Mountains in its icy grasp, the heads of the eastern valleys, close 
up under the ballons, became a favorite gathering ground for 
glaciers. As these masses of ice grew larger and began gnawing 
into the mountain flank, they excavated amphitheaters, or 
cirques, whose steep head walls undermined the rounded slopes 
above. But before glaciers from several sides of the domes could 
carry their work to the point of removing all of the smooth upland 
surface and leaving only a jagged peak or horn, like the Matter- 

6 H. de Peyerimhof, quoted by G. Bleicher: Les Vosges, Paris, 1890, p. 23. 

7 O. Barre: L'architecture du sol de la France: Essai de geographie tectonique, 
Paris, 1903, p. 113. 



VOSGES MOUNTAINS 461 

horn of the Alps, a milder climate intervened and the ice melted 
away. Today we read the record of the incompleted task in the 
smoothly rounded remnants of the preglacial upland surface, 
sharply broken into, especially on the east, by the steep head 
walls of glacial cirques. It is in the bottoms of the cirques 
that we find the little glacial lakes, or tarns, such as Lac Noir 
and Lac Blanc, which with their wild rocky basins and towering 
precipices recall the glacial scenery of the Alps. In some of 
these rock-rimmed depressions safe emplacements were found 
for guns which during four years waked the mountain echoes; 
in others elaborate stone-walled encampments for troops ob- 
tained secure shelter under the high cliffs. 

We have now in mind a general picture of the great earth block 
forming the Vosges mountain mass, with its gentle western slope 
beveling across crystalline rocks at the higher levels, across the 
overlapping sandstone on the lower flank, and dissected into a 
mountainous topography by west-flowing streams and their 
branches; and with its steep eastern scarp frayed into ravines 
and ridges and often terminating aloft in the rock walls of glacial 
cirques which undermined the lofty domes of the ballons. We 
shall find it profitable to look more closely at the forms of 
this mountain mass, to discover in what manner it might serve as 
a barrier against enemy invasions, and where and by what means 
a hostile army might traverse it. For it can hardly be doubted 
that a range rising to an elevation of nearly 4,700 feet, or about 
4,000 feet above the plain of the Rhine, and spreading over a 
breadth of nearly 40 miles, must constitute a military barrier 
worthy of our attention, whatever its detailed form may be. Let 
us, therefore, first examine the lower western flank, then traverse 
the higher valleys to the crest, observe the character of the 
passes, and descend the eastern scarp far enough to satisfy our- 
selves regarding the salient features of the military geography of 

the Vosges. 

The Sandstone Vosges 

In ascending the valleys of the Meurthe, the Aiortagne, or the 
Moselle, one enters the sandstone Vosges just beyond Baccarat, 



462 



BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 







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VOSGES MOUNTAINS 463 

Rambervillers, or Epinal. These towns, in fact, mark the western 
exits of the chief river gateways through the forested sandstone 
massif; hence their military importance. Seven railroads and a 
larger number of main highways traversing the Lorraine plain 
converge to pass through these three gaps. For a distance of 
sixty or seventy miles north and south not a railroad and but few 
important highways enter the Vosges without passing through 
one of the three river gates. This in itself is sufficient to indicate 
that the sandstone Vosges must be a barrier restricting travel to 
a limited number of passageways. 

The barrier role of the sandstone Vosges depends in part upon 
the topography and in part upon the nature of its forest cover. 
As previously pointed out, the sloping sandstone beds, while not 
forming a well-developed cuesta, or asymmetrical plateau, do 
tend to give a sloping upland which often has a steeper scarp 
facing the southeast. It is true that the edge of the upland 
appears in a variety of guises, but these may increase rather than 
diminish its importance as an obstacle. East of Baccarat, for 
example, the sandstone is dislocated in such manner as to cause 
the scarp to be repeated (Fig. 99). The River Rabodeau flows at 
the base of one scarp, the Paver Plaine at the base of the other, 
their valleys forming two natural moats protecting the two steep 
mountain walls. Raon-1'Etape lies at the exit of the Meurthe 
gateway through the first of these ridges, just as Baccarat lies 
at the exit from the second. Somewhat similar dislocations com- 
plicate the topography east of Epinal, but the results are not so 
striking. In the intermediate area, southeast of Rambervillers, 
the inner edge of the sandstone is eroded into an irregular three- 
pronged bastion towering high over the little town of St. Die and 
bearing on its back the great Forest of Mortagne. In all these 
areas the sandstone upland presents toward the southeast a 
formidable escarpment (Fig. 117). 

Dissection of the western slope of the sandstone formation has 
transformed it into a maze of high, steep-sided ridges which pre- 
serve on their summits comparatively little of the flat upland 
surface. Nevertheless the nearly horizontal structure of the beds 



464 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

gives the hills a tabular form, the steep lower slopes often being 
crowned with nearly or quite vertical walls, occasionally 
weathered into fantastic shapes resembling the ruins of medieval 
castles. Nor could castle walls prove more difficult to scale than 
some of these architectural forms designed by Nature. They 
would be more impressive were they not repeated with such 
monotonous regularity throughout the whole belt of the sand- 
stone Vosges, which may accurately be described as difficult to 
traverse and little inhabited. Sands suitable for glass manufac- 
ture and wood for fuel and the wood industries have not proved 
enough to redeem the most of the terrain from its primitive 
condition as a wilderness. 

The Forest Cover 

Over all is spread the dark mantle of a dense spruce forest, 
which owes its existence primarily to the infertility of the sandy 
soil resulting from the disintegration of the sandstone beds, and 
secondarily to the relative inaccessibility of its steep slopes and 
isolated tabular uplands. With but the rarest exceptions it is 
only along the narrow valley bottoms that open fields and 
meadows relieve the gloom of the continuous band of close-set 
trees guarding the western approaches to the Vosges passes. 
Toward the north the sandstone laps farther and farther east- 
ward, until it reaches the crest of the range in the vicinity of the 
Donon and from there northward forms the summit. In the 
Lower Vosges, as the sandstone plateau north of the Pass of 
Saverne (Zabern) is called, it was always the dense forests rather 
than the form of the surface which made the region a barrier so 
difficult to traverse that it formerly served well as a natural 
frontier. 

It must readily appear that an escarpment heavily cloaked 
with forest from summit to base cannot so well serve the purposes 
of defense as those we have studied farther west. Extensive 
clearings would have to be made before satisfactory observation 
was possible, and even then one part of the escarpment might 
not be able effectively to support another subjected to attack, 



VOSGES MOUNTAINS 465 

because of intervening woods. Add the fact that the lowland 
which fronts the escarpment is neither broad, flat, nor fully 
exposed, and an appreciable proportion of its importance is gone. 
But it must not be imagined that such a maze of steep-sided 
•hills and narrow valleys, fortified with an almost impenetrable 
forest cover, can under any circumstances lose its military value. 
In the somber shadows of the forest near the crest of the escarp- 
ment south of Raon 1' Etape, at the Col de Trace or de la Chipote, 
the traveler passes a recently erected monument hewn from red 
sandstone. This monument marks the spot where the German 
invasion of 1914 was halted after having reached the col itself. It 
is a memorial to those heroes who perished in denying the enemy 
access to the outermost rim of the Paris Basin. It might also 
be regarded as a tribute to the sandstone ridge from which it 
was carved : for it was no mere accident that the repulse occurred 
on this escarpment. At Epinal it is the dissected sandstone scarp 
and upland which give the excellent series of positions utilized in 
fortifying the solid buttress upon which rests securely the left of 
the defensive "Line of the upper Moselle." 

The Crystalline Vosges 

East of the sandstone belt the crystalline rocks reach the sur- 
face, first appearing in the imperfect lowland eroded along the 
base of the irregular sandstone scarp. Quickly the country rises to 
mountain heights again, but this time in more knobby masses 
which lack the architectural forms of the sandstone and which 
slope more gently as they approach the valley bottoms (Fig. 104). 
Here and there tabular masses of the sandstone, saved from the 
ravages of millenniums of erosion, cap the granite mountains, 
most frequently just east of the sandstone Vosges escarpment. 
Farther up in the mountains to the southeast the crystallines 
alone are exposed, and the only suggestions of geometrical lines 
appear in the straight courses of certain valleys and in the level 
sky line testifying to the old erosion surface which once beveled 
across the whole mass. Glaciers formerly occupied a number of 
the valleys, possibly widening and deepening certain of them, and 



466 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

formed lakes some of which are dammed by moraines, as is the 
case with Lake Gerardmer. It is the higher, glaciated portion of 
the crystalline Vosges which is scenically most beautiful and most 
difficult for an hostile army to negotiate. 

Nevertheless, the feature which most impresses the traveler on 
entering the crystalline Vosges is the extent to which the country 
is cleared and populated. The contrast with the heavily forested 
and sparsely inhabited sandstone Vosges is striking in the 
extreme. Indeed, the crystalline mountains are more densely 
peopled than the plain of Lorraine. Both valley floors and valley 
walls are cleared, and fields and meadows mount high on the 
slopes (Fig. 104). In a few places even the uplands are cleared 
and occupied; but elsewhere extensive peat bogs and forests 
cover the level highlands. The forests supply material for the 
wood industries and for paper manufacturing, as well as fuel. 
Although the mountain streams flow between grassy banks in 
valleys which are fairly open, they descend with enough rapidity 
to develop abundant water power; and into these valleys the cot- 
ton industry of Alsace-Lorraine has penetrated so extensively as 
to transform them into industrial centers of much importance. 

Valley Barriers 

Notwithstanding the open and smiling landscapes with which 
the valleys of the crystalline Vosges delight the observer, these 
natural trenches through the mountain mass have a r61e to 
play in the grim business of war. They are not merely routes 
for supply lines leading to the crest of the mountain barrier, but 
are also lines of defense against an enemy advancing parallel 
with the axis of the range. The most notable example of the 
latter use of the valleys is found in the case of the Moselle River, 
upon which is based the famous fortified "Line of the upper 
Moselle," the Epinal-Belfort string of fortresses (Fig. 83). 
From the base of the mountains at the Epinal gateway to the 
crest at the Ballon de Servance (near the Ballon d Alsace), 
the southern wall of the Moselle trench is crowned with forts 
so spaced as to sweep the valley floor throughout its length 



VOSGES MOUNTAINS 467 

and every road crossing the barrier southward toward the 
Saone basin with accurately directed artillery fire. Except in 
times of flood the river is easily fordable and near its headwaters 
is little more than a trout brook; but with the northern 
approaches so mountainous as to reduce the lines of advance to 
comparatively few we'.l-known routes, with dangerous peat 
bogs and forest strongholds scattered over the upland, and with 
the slopes of the trench and its floor sufficiently exposed to give 
artillery and machine-gun fire full play, the barrier is doubtless 
correctly considered as practically impregnable. The massive 
Vosges barrier with its deep valley trenches made a fitting basis 
for the southern element in the Verdun-Toul plus Epinal-Belfort 
scheme of defense for France's eastern frontier. 

A noteworthy feature of the crystalline Vosges is the large 
number of valley trenches and ridges which run parallel to the 
crest of the range and hence at right angles to the general courses 
of the transverse Meurthe and Moselle. It is not necessary to 
enumerate these valleys, which will appear on any good detailed 
map, nor to discuss individually their military value. Suffice it 
to say that this systematic parallelism of surface form, which 
probably has its origin in parallel folding or fracturing of the 
crystalline mass, and which affects both the continuity of the 
crest line and the character of certain passes, results in a suc- 
cession of trenches and walls too difficult to be crossed save 
along the courses of a few transverse valleys. 

Passes of the Vosges 

The crest of the Vosges Mountains is not composed of a 
single continuous ridge, but of a series of three main ridges and 
possibly one subordinate crest arranged en echelon (Fig. 98). 8 
The Franco-German frontier of 1871, following the crest of the 
range northward to the Donon, was forced to jump from one 
ridge to another, thus acquiring its peculiar offsets to the west. 
It further results from this pattern of the topography that the 
passes by which the range may be crossed are of two principal 

s Barre, L'architecture du sol de la France, pp. 113-114. 



468 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

types: those leading directly over one of the main crest ridges, 
and those which insinuate themselves, so to speak, between two 
of the ridges where they overlap. To the former class belong the 
pass of Bussang (731 meters above sea level; the highest point 
of the range is 1 ,424 meters above sea level) and the high pass of 
the Schlucht (1,139 meters), saddles in the first main crest 
giving access to the Moselle headwaters; the passes of Bonhomme 
(951 meters) and Ste. Marie aux Mines (753 meters), the latter 
utilized by the French armies during the wars of the end of the 
seventeenth century, both saddles in the second crest giving 
access to the headwaters of the Meurthe; and finally the pass 
of Donon (760 meters) across the third ridge, also giving access 
from Germany to the upper Meurthe. There are seven more of 
these passes crossed by minor roads; but not until we reach 
the low trough of Saverne (404 meters), at the northern limit of 
the High Vosges, do we find a pass carrying a railway. Prior 
to 1 914 the main Vosges barrier had never been breached by a 
line of rails. As a rule the passes of this first class are difficult 
of ascent, even for a highway, especially on the steep eastern 
side, where the roads first follow the short valleys till near their 
heads (Fig. 116), then zigzag up some ridge to gain the crest. 
Traffic along the perilous trails climbing the eastern scarp was 
not infrequently punctuated with disaster, many men and ani- 
mals having lost their lives when the Rotenbach and other passes 
little used today were crossed by caravans carrying commerce 
between Alsace and the transmontane regions. The Schlucht 
Pass was rendered really practicable only in i860 by skillful 
engineering work which perched an excellent highway in a 
niche cut along the face of sheer granite walls and yawning 
precipices and made it secure from the falling rock slides which 
imperiled the poor trail of earlier days. It is easy to see how a 
small body of defenders, installed in good positions on the crests 
commanding such a road, could effectively block the pass against 
greatly superior forces restricted to this one line of advance. 
After severe fighting in 1914 the French held the Schlucht Pass 
for the remainder of the war; and the sentry in his sandbag 



VOSGES MOUNTAINS 469 

shelter where the road over the pass intersected the new mili- 
tary road along the ridge, during most of this time experienced no 
greater excitement than the daily "strafing" of the crossroads by 
the German guns down in the forested ravines of the eastern slope. 

The second class of passes, those connecting longitudinal 
valleys between the main crest ridges where these overlap, in- 
cludes but two; the relatively unimportant Louchpach (Lusch- 
bach) Pass, between the first and second ridges, and the Saales 
Pass (560 meters) between the second and third ridges. The 
Saales Pass is the lowest and most important gap in the entire 
range from the Belfort gateway to the trough of Saverne. The 
second and third crest ridges are farther apart than the first and 
second, and the col between them correspondingly deeper. On the 
north the longitudinal valley of the Bruche (Breusch) heads 
against the low col and flows northward between the overlapping 
ridges until it can turn around the northern end of the eastern 
ridge to reach Strassburg. Southward a longitudinal branch of 
the Meurthe leads down to St. Die. Here, then, is the one 
really accessible gateway through the High Vosges from the 
Rhine valley to the plain of Lorraine; or, in 1914, from Germany 
into France. 

That the Saales Pass should have played an important role in 
directing movements across the Vosges from the earliest times 
can easily be comprehended. Before the Roman period, invad- 
ing hordes from the east poured through it to spread over the 
plain of Lorraine, and the Roman conquerors later built a road 
across it. In 1870 it was the only pass through the High Vosges 
utilized by the Germans. When after that war the territory to 
the north and east became German, the German government 
constructed a railway up the valley of the Bruche to the pass, 
by which they could in "the next war" transport armies to the 
very threshold of this entrance into France. On the other 
hand, the French government, acting on the advice of the 
Minister of War, refused permission to build a line on the French 
side of the pass linking the German railway with the French 
system. Now that Alsace-Lorraine has returned to the mother 



47o BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

country, a railway through the pass will doubtless soon be 
completed for commercial, political, and strategic reasons. 

The "Ballons" 

The crest of the Vosges rises now and again in the broad 
grassy domes, or ballons, between which are the saddles forming 
the transverse passes of the first class described above. It is 
very striking to behold these "balds" rising above the dark 
mantle of the Vosges forest, in a range which nowhere attains 
an altitude of 5,000 feet. But there is, despite the low elevation 
for this latitude, a distinct tree line at about the 4,000 foot 
contour. This seems to result from the severe climate of the 
higher Vosges, which are covered with a deep mantle of snow 
late into the spring, while in favored localities in the highest 
valleys or glacial cirques patches of snow sometimes last through 
the summer. As a consequence of these climatic conditions enor- 
mous kennels of dogs were maintained by the armies on the Vos- 
ges front for sledge transport during a large part of the year. 

Because of the superior heights of the ballons, guarding the 
passes on either side and dominating the approaches to them 
through the valleys far below, they possess some military value. 
Their smooth surfaces were fortified with field works (Fig. 105) 
and utilized as observation stations when not too far from the 
battle front. From the Ballon dAlsace one has a wonderful 
view in all directions: westward the even-crested upland 
slopes gently down to the plain of Lorraine, with the trench of 
the upper Moselle visible for a long distance; northward is the 
asymmetrical crest bearing other domes which merge on the west 
with the even upland sky line but drop off abruptly into the 
ravines scouring the steeper eastern scarp; eastward one gazes 
down into the ravine heads which seem to undermine the very 
feet of the observer and out upon the plain of the Rhine far 
beyond, where passing trains can be seen with the naked eye; 
southward the Belfort gateway and the town itself are in plain 
view. The Ballon de Servance likewise gives commanding 
observation in every direction, and the fortress upon it, the 



VOSGES MOUNTAINS 471 

highest on the eastern frontier of France north of the Swiss 
boundary, dominates the valley routes below and connects the 
fortified line of the upper Moselle with the entrenched camp of 
Belfort. 

East of the main crest is a short minor ridge (Fig. 98) carrying 
the highest dome of all, the Ballon de Guebwiller. Its summit, 
1,424 meters or about 4,700 feet above sea level, is the culminat- 
ing point of the Vosges and gains in impressiveness because of 
its advanced position, close to the low plain of the Rhine valley. 
From its higher slopes a broad area of the plain from Miilhausen 
to Colmar may be kept under easy observation and much of it 
dominated by artillery fire. This is why so many bitter conflicts 
raged for the possession of a knob on the eastern slope of the 
ballon, known as Hartmannsweilerkopf. Loss of this knob by 
the Germans meant that the enemy would gain excellent views 
far behind their front, as well as direct observation into ravines 
concealing the big guns supporting the German line, and would 
enfilade their trenches for a long distance to the south, compelling 
a retreat into the exposed plain, where hidden gun positions 
would no longer be available. Only when the consequences of 
yielding such a position were considered could one who looked 
upon the splintered trees and shattered rocks of Hartmanns- 
weilerkopf, with shells bursting around its crest and fountains 
of rock and earth vomiting on all sides, imagine why so many 
lives should be sacrificed to retain one particular height amidst 
a maze of peaks and ridges. 

East of the main crest of the Vosges the short valleys which 
drop so abruptly near their heads, but more gently farther 
down, have the forests cleared from their floors (Fig. 116), so that 
enemy movements by the only practicable routes are exposed 
to observation and fire from above. The valley walls are often 
so steep as to be left with their cover of trees, although ridge 
tops are in places cleared for pastures. To penetrate the eastern 
valleys of the Vosges under enemy observation and fire, to 
traverse exposed valley roads enfiladed by artillery posted on 
the heights, to negotiate tortuous zigzag roads scaling preci- 



472 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

pices and steep rock slides, with sheer granite walls on one side, 
yawning chasms on the other, and a determined enemy advan- 
tageously posted in front, is obviously a military operation of 
such extreme difficulty that only in case no easier approach to 
the enemy was available would the terrain of the Vosges become 
the scene of major operations. Throughout most of the war 
this portion of the front was lightly held while both sides sought 
victory on fields better adapted to military maneuvers. "This 
sector in the beautiful wooded hills and mountains of the Vosges 
was quiet in that it was practically free from danger of a great 
German offensive, as there was nothing to gain, while enormous 
losses were certain in trying to march armies over the mountains. 
The French and Germans had used the sector as a position where 
divisions worn out with fighting elsewhere in the line could break 
in their recruits or 'replacements'. The shell fire was conse- 
quently held down to a minimum by both sides so that the 
much-needed rest could be obtained before the call came for the 
division to go to an active front." 9 Into this sector one division 
after another of American troops were brought to give the men 
their first acquaintance with modern warfare, until the Vosges 
became one of the chief training grounds of America's new 
armies. Those compelled' to leave for other fronts "still speak of 
the happy days in the Vosges." 

9 Shipley Thomas: The History of the A. E. F., New York, 1920, p. 62. 



CHAPTER X 

MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE BATTLEFIELD 
OF LORRAINE 

First Advance into Alsace 

Scarcely had France recovered from the first shock of the 
declaration of war, when her general staff launched an offensive 
into Alsace. This operation was designed, among other things, 
to render more secure the right flank of the armies defending the 
vital Charmes Trough and soon to advance into the Lorraine 
gateway; to establish the right flank of the Allied line firmly on 
the strong Rhine barrier; and to assure the possibility of de- 
bouching from the Vosges passes into the Rhine plain on a wide 
front. It was also doubtless intended by this movement into a 
"lost province" to stimulate the patriotic ardor of the whole 
French people and to arouse the Alsatians to fight against their 
oppressors. If successful in pushing down the Rhine valley for 
any considerable distance, the advancing force would threaten 
the flank and rear of the German armies massing on the threshold 
of the Lorraine gateway for the impending irruption along the 
Trough of Charmes. 

The first effort of the French was executed with a number of 
troops utterly insufficient for so important a task and with a lack 
of prevision which was swiftly punished. Debouching through 
the Belfort gateway on August 7, 1914, the light covering forces 
of the Germans were so rapidly hurled back that in a few hours 
the Altkirch position on the upper 111 was forced and the next 
day the soldiers of France joyously entered Mulhouse (Miil- 
hausen). Before the echoes of Joffre's proclamation of deliver- 
ance had died away, however, the feeble French columns were 
violently assaulted by superior enemy forces, and three days 



474 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

after they had quitted Belfort they were again back under its 
protecting guns. 

Immediately a new army of Alsace under General Pau was 
formed to undertake the task with larger forces and better appre- 
ciation of the difficulties to be overcome. It was determined after 
driving the enemy back behind the flat-bottomed trench of the 
111 River to breach that barrier and throw him beyond the 
formidable obstacle of the Rhine, where he could be held in check 
by a limited number of troops while the advance down the Rhine 
valley toward the north continued. To aid this operation other 
French forces would descend the steep eastern face of the Vosges 
along the short valleys eroded in the escarpment, clearing the 
Germans from the mountain stronghold. Pau's army could then 
move north with its right flank protected by a practically im- 
passable river and its left by an impregnable mountain buttress. 

The capture of the Vosges passes was a necessary preliminary 
to this operation. The French withdrawal for a distance of eight 
kilometers (elsewhere ten) from the frontier in order to avoid bor- 
der incidents and to demonstrate to the world that the war was 
one of German aggression, coupled with the perfection of Ger- 
many's preparation for launching the blow at the moment chosen 
by her as most favorable, gave to the enemy a great initial advan- 
tage. In the Vosges, however, more than anywhere else, this 
advantage was offset by natural disadvantages which no military 
skill could completely overcome. The Germans had to supply 
their forces by few and perilous routes clinging precariously to 
granite walls along the steep mountain face; whereas the French, 
maneuvering on the gentle backslope of the range, found the 
movement of troops, the handling of supplies and munitions, the 
bringing up of big guns, and many other necessary operations 
much less difficult. The natural features of the terrain told in 
favor of the French, and at one pass after another the enemy was 
pushed over the crest and back down the eastern slope. The 
recapture of the Bussang and Schlucht passes was found to be 
especially facilitated by the fact that German artillery under the 
steep eastern scarp could lend very poor support to their infantry 



FIRST ADVANCE INTO ALSACE 475 

on the upland, whereas the French artillery operated easily and 
effectively on the much more favorable terrain west of these 
passes. Before a week had elapsed every pass in the range be- 
tween the Ballon d'Alsace in the south and the imposing Mont 
Donon in the north was in French hands. 

With possession of the Vosges passes assured to the French, 
and the Germans clinging with difficulty to the steep eastern face 
of the great mountain barrier, the situation was ripe on August 
14 for the new offensive in Alsace. General Pau's army de- 
bouched through the Belfort gateway into the Rhine plain, 
crushed the German resistance along the river 111, captured Mul- 
house, and threw the enemy back on the Rhine. His left wing, 
pushing down hill from the passes, drove the Germans from the 
heights into the lower valleys, captured Thann near the mouth 
of the Thur valley, and much of the dominating mass of the 
Ballon de Guebwiller farther north. By the 21st Colmar was 
closely threatened, and the possibility of an attack on the com- 
munications of the German armies in the Lorraine gateway 
seemed on the point of changing into a probability. 

Dubail's First Army, on the left of Pau's army, having secured 
the northern passes of the range, was likewise pushing toward the 
plain. Through the vital Saales Pass especially his forces were 
pouring down the Bruche valley toward Strassburg, protected by 
the dominating height of the Donon, towering above them to the 
west. From one end of the Vosges to the other the armies of 
France, allied with the force of gravity, were beating down upon 
the retreating enemy, with visions of a decisive success beckoning 
them onward, when failure on other battlefields wrecked the 
Alsatian campaign. The retreat to the Marne had become 
necessary, and every ounce of strength must be conserved for the 
impending struggle farther west. At the same time the defeat of 
the French in the Battle of Sarrebourg-Morhange (Saarburg- 
Morchingen) was entailing the retirement of Dubail's left wing 
from the northern passes of the Vosges. The armies in Alsace 
were therefore ordered to fall back upon the impregnable position 
of the Vosges crest south of the Bonhomme Pass. 



476 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

The Battle of Sarrebourg-Morhange 
On August 14, simultaneously with the invasion of Alsace by 
the armies of General Pau and of General Dubail's right wing 
through the Belfort gateway and the Vosges passes as detailed 
above, Dubail's left wing and the French Second Army under 
General de Castelnau invaded Germany through the Lorraine 
gateway. Their advance was directed toward the line of the 
Sarre River, which together with its outlying lake-forest-marsh 
barrier on the southeast and the hills rimming the Sarre 'Basin 
on the northwest, constituted a formidable obstacle across 
the Lorraine plain, connecting the Vosges Mountains with 
the mountains of western Germany. Between the French and 
their objective the German armies were holding an exceedingly 
strong position protecting the Metz-Strassburg strategic railroad 
through the Lorraine gateway, a position based on the northward 
extension of the Saffais plateau and the lake-forest-marsh region 
of the plain next to the east. General de Castelnau, whose inti- 
mate knowledge of the terrain, keen appreciation of the impor- 
tance of topographic barriers in military operations, and calm 
judgment made him one of the most trusted advisers of the 
French high command throughout the war, was not unaware of 
the tremendous difficulties which must be encountered in any 
attempt to dislodge the Germans from the terrain on which they 
had elected to receive the French attack. Indeed, there is good 
reason to believe that this unfortunate offensive was undertaken 
in obedience to orders which his judgment did not approve. 

The German right wing rested on the commanding ridge of the 
Cote de Delme (Fig. 113) crowning the northern extension of the 
Saffais upland and dominating the exposed Seille lowland from 
the east. The center lay across the double bastion of Morhange- 
Dieuze (Fig. 98), each of the two walls of this projecting plateau 
mass being held by strong forces entrenched on the upland, often 
concealed under forest cover and sweeping the intervening valley, 
as well as the plain to the north and south, with their fire. At 
Dieuze the marshy valley of the Seille links up with a series of 
marshes, lakes, and forests stretching northeast, east, and south- 



SARREBOURG-MORHANGE BATTLE 477 

east to the great belt of lakes and forests paralleling the Sarre 
valley on the west, and forming thus a triangular mass (Dieuze- 
Gondrexange-Mittersheim) of difficult country, the northern 
exits from which were held by the German right wing standing 
behind the upper Seille barrier. The wooded heights of the 
bastion north of Dieuze dominated this humid lowland for many 
miles to the east and south. East of the marshes ran the natural 
trench of the Sarre River, on the farther bank of which were 
strong German forces. Altogether the enemy's position, while 
less formidable than the high plateau of the Moselle which the 
Germans were later to attack, was exceedingly strong. It had 
been skillfully organized with trenches, barbed-wire entangle- 
ments, concealed machine-gun nests, and other devices of modern 
defensive warfare soon to become a familiar feature of the 
struggle, but which were then sufficiently novel to baffle and 
disorganize the most determined assaults, even those delivered 
by greatly superior forces. 

Against the difficult terrain thus strongly defended, along 
roads accurately registered by the German artillery, through 
a country teeming with spies who by innumerable devices kept 
the enemy well posted as to the movements of the attacking 
forces, Dubail's left wing and De Castelnau's Second Army 
advanced to the assault. The former, debouching from behind 
the protecting trench of the Meurthe, pushed forward toward the 
line of the upper Sarre along the easier pathway between the 
savage country of the sandstone Vosges on the right, where his 
right wing was delayed by the difficulty of dislodging the enemy 
from mountain strongholds, and the lake-forest barrier on the 
left. Dubail thus sought to turn the marshy triangle by ad- 
vancing down the valley of the Sarre River. When the upper 
Vezouse valley was encountered, the light German forces 
fighting a delaying action from beyond Domevre on the west 
to Cirey on the east were overthrown after a short struggle, 
and the line of the Sarre from Sarrebourg up to the base of the 
Vosges gained without serious resistance. On the 20th, however, 
the real battle was precipitated when the French sought to cross 



478 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

the Sarre trench. Crushed by sheer weight of the artillery storm 
let loose by the defenders, the attacking forces, unable to cross 
the obstacle in front of them and hemmed in on the west by the 
wilderness of lakes and woods, were forced to retreat. Sarre- 
bourg, which had been seized, had to be evacuated, and heavy 
losses in men added to the costliness of the check. But on the 
right the Germans hurled themselves in vain against the strong 
mountain positions from the border of the plam to the Donon, 
and Dubail might have resumed the offensive next day had not 
the forces of De Castelnau been constrained to an extensive re- 
tirement. 

On Dubail's left the Second Army attacked the main German 
positions by four principal routes. One column was directed 
toward the marshy triangle Dieuze-Gondrexange-Mittersheim, 
to enter and clear that stronghold of enemy detachments and 
debouch if possible from the northern exits as the forces farther 
east advanced parallel with them down the Sarre valley. A 
second column advancing across the Arracourt curtain toward 
Dieuze was to attack and dislodge the enemy from the wooded 
heights of the Dieuze ridge, while a third performed a similar 
function for the northern, or Morhange, wall of the double-walled 
bastion. The fourth column on the extreme left was merely to 
keep the enemy pinned to his positions on the Cote de Delme and 
so protect the left flank of De Castelnau's army from attack. 
Once the Morhange wall was in French possession, the Cote de 
Delme position at the western base of the Nied valley curtain 
would be outflanked. 

As before Dubail's army, so also before De Castelnau's the 
Germans fell back without offering any opposition more serious 
than stiff rearguard combats at favorable points on the terrain, 
until the strong positions described above were reached. The 
first column cleared the marsh-girt triangle but encountered 
great difficulty in debouching from the northern exits and forcing 
the marshy Seille barrier. At Dieuze the second column, caught 
in the marshes at the base of the ridge under heavy fire and 
finding the wooded heights practically impregnable, could make 



CHARMES TROUGH BATTLE 479 

little progress despite heavy sacrifices. Farther north the steep 
southeastern face of the Morhange wall, repeatedly assaulted 
with indomitable bravery on August 20, exacted so heavy a 
toll from the attacking troops as to break the force of the French 
offensive. Exposed on the smooth open slopes to machine-gun 
fire from well-chosen positions, the French infantry was literally 
"mowed down in swathes" and finally broke in confusion. All 
along the line the skillfully defended natural obstacles had 
proved insurmountable, and General de Castelnau ordered his 
troops to fall back on their strong plateau positions. The Battle 
of Morhange, like the Battle of Sarrebourg, had ended in a 
German victory; and the victors now followed hard upon the 
retreating Frenchmen, eager to launch their projected offensive 
along the vital Trough of Charmes. 

The Battle of the Trough of Charmes 

While the forces under De Castelnau took their stand upon the 
Grand Couronne north of Nancy (PI. VI) and the Saffais plateau 
to the south, Dubail's troops retired across the Vezouse and 
Meurthe trenches, along each of which delaying actions were 
fought, until his east-west front linked up with the Second Army's 
north-south front on the strong Saffais upland (prolonged as the 
Essey bastion) on the west and was defended on the right by the 
wooded labyrinth of the sandstone Vosges. In this latter sector 
the troops which had reluctantly yielded the high buttress of the 
Donon and the northern passes of the Vosges brought the in- 
vaders to a halt on the sandstone escarpment at the Col de la 
Chipote (p. 465). With the enemy checked at this almost 
impregnable barrier, Dubail's forces .stretching across the floor 
of the Charmes trough were reasonably secure against the danger 
of a turning movement from the east, a security repeated on the 
west by the strong position on the plateau scarps. To meet the 
shock of the enemy's assault all available artillery was concen- 
trated in the hidden ravines dissecting the Essey bastion, par- 
ticularly on the Borville plateau near its apex, from which the 
plain beyond toward Rambervillers and all approaches to the 



480 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

scarp could be held under fire. In case of emergency, the defen- 
ders still had the strong line of the Moselle to fall back upon. 

On August 24 it became clear that the German high command 
was indeed going to attempt the logical drive through the Trough 
of Charmes, so long foretold by French military students. 
Large enemy forces were reported moving southwest along the 
depression. Apparently they were ignoring for the time the 
French units which from the Cote de Delme and Morhange had 
retired to the vicinity of Nancy. The strong position of the 
Grand Couronne could be effectively turned from the south if 
the Trough of Charmes were breached. The first act in the 
great struggle to break and roll up the right wing of the Allied 
front developed rapidly. De Castelnau, taking prompt advan- 
tage of the enemy's mistake in exposing his right flank to attack, 
directed a part of his forces to move forward to the crest of the 
Saffais plateau north of the River Sanon called the "Rembetant" 
and out across the Manonviller bastion to the south of the river, 
and from these commanding positions to harass the flank and 
rear of the southward moving German columns so as to break 
the speed and force of their assault along the line of the Mortagne. 
The following morning the French loosed an offensive which 
wrecked the whole German plan of campaign. From the strong 
Essey bastion and Saffais heights, dominating the Mortagne 
moat on the southwest, a terrific fire was poured upon the front 
and flank of the attacking forces. Simultaneously the troops of 
De Castelnau's Second Army, debouching from the plateau 
strongholds farther north, pushed home the attack against the 
enemy's flank and rear. 

Staggered by the suddenness and the fury of an offensive 
delivered by troops seriously defeated with heavy losses only 
a few days before, unable to overcome the admirable advantages 
of position which the French enjoyed on the Saffais upland, and 
badly worried by the flank attack coming from the plateau 
farther north, the enemy beat a hasty retreat. Efforts to pass 
by the right flank of the First Army in the Vosges near St. Die 
were also frustrated by forces basing their defense on that dif- 



GRAND COURONNE BATTLE 481 

ficult terrain. There was nothing to minimize the decisiveness 
of the enemy's defeat. 

The German high command now saw that until De Castelnau's 
army, firmly entrenched on the plateau heights dominating the 
German right flank, was disposed of, any further attempt to 
drive forward along the Trough of Charmes was doomed to end 
in failure, if not in disaster. The Battle cf the Trough of 
Charmes, sharp but short, had ended in an Allied victory of the 
highest importance. Admirable use of a terrain peculiarly 
adapted to a defensive-offensive had defeated the first great 
attempt of the enemy to turn the right wing of the Allied line. 
The second and supreme attempt was to begin without delay. 

The Battle of the Grand Couronne 

A successful attack on the plateau crests to the north and 
south of Nancy was now essential if the German scheme of en- 
veloping the Allied armies from both wings was not to end in 
failure thus early in the campaign. Something much more im- 
portant than entering the chief city of France's eastern frontier 
was involved on the German side. If the Moselle plateau barrier 
was conquered and the French expelled from their natural 
bridgehead fortress east of the Moselle River, one of the two 
chief obstacles to the isolation of Verdun would have disappeared, 
the German flank would be relieved of a dangerous menace, the 
Trough of Charmes opened, and the envelopment of the Allied 
right wing rendered possible. When to all this was added the 
moral effect of a spectacular entrance of the Kaiser into Nancy, 
both in stimulating German ardor for the war and in depressing 
French public opinion, the fruits of the hoped-for victory are 
seen to have been of sufficient magnitude to justify a tremendous 
effort on the part of the German high command. 

To appreciate fully the whole significance of the Battle of the 
Grand Couronne, often called 'the Battle of Nancy, one must 
review certain interesting chapters in the development of French 
military opinion. The question of the fortification and defense of 
Nancy had long been vigorously debated. In the judgment of 



482 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

many experts Nancy could not effectively be defended. It was 
believed that Germany's political constitution must enable her 
to mobilize and concentrate her troops for attack much faster 
than France, and therefore any attempt to gather forces of 
defense east of Nancy would only expose them to a disastrous 
onslaught before their organization had been perfected. This 
difficulty might have been obviated by turning Nancy into an 
entrenched camp like Verdun, surrounded by a circle of modern 
forts and furnished with a garrison strong enough to hold an 
enemy at bay until French mobilization was completed in good 
order. But this proposal always raised the objection that the 
fortification of Nancy might be regarded by Germany as a casus 
belli and so precipitate the very disaster it was intended to avert. 
There even grew up in certain circles the legend that a codicil or 
appendix to the Treaty of Frankfort forbade the fortification of 
the city — a result, it is said, of some statement in diplomatic 
correspondence to the effect that Germany would regard such 
fortification as an affront. In any case it was a favorite theory 
among French military authorities that the first great battle for 
the defense of eastern France must take place with the French 
army standing on the western bank of the Moselle, and hence 
with Nancy unprotected. 

It is largely due to General de Castelnau that a contrary 
opinion ultimately prevailed. When he became chief of staff he 
took up this question with characteristic vigor and demonstrated 
that the peculiar topography of the Nancy region made it both 
possible and desirable to defend the city and deliver the first 
battle east of the Moselle. His intimate knowledge of the terrain 
and keen appreciation of its possibilities awakened confidence 
in his contention that the natural bridgehead of the Grand 
Couronne projecting east of the Moselle trench (PI. VI) could be 
turned into an impregnable stronghold and must be held to 
permit the French armies to debouch from behind the river 
barrier at will. Failure to do this would not only condemn the 
French to a purely defensive campaign and prevent them from 
following up effectively any reverse they might inflict upon 



GRAND COURONNE BATTLE 



483 



enemy forces trying in vain to breach the river barrier; it might 
also lead to the enemy's outflanking the French position from the 
north, owing to the fact that the westward slope of the plateau 
would permit enemy forces established on the heights of the 
Grand Couronne to dominate the lower western wall of the 
Moselle trench and so to force a crossing. On the other hand, 
with the Grand Couronne securely held by the French, a flank 

attack against enemy 
forces seeking to force 
the Moselle barrier far- 
ther south and to pene- 
trate along the Trough 
of Charmes could always 
be counted upon to 
counteract that danger. 
The detailed forms of 
the terrain were so fa- 
vorable to the defense 
that even moderate 
forces properly estab- 
lished on the dominating 
heights could be relied 
upon to hold in check 
greatly superior numbers 
of the enemy. Finally, 
the pronounced bastion- 
and-curtain pattern as- 
sumed by the plateau margin would both simplify the defense 
and make it difficult, if not impossible, for the enemy to penetrate 
as far as Nancy. By utilizing a combination of the Amance 
bastion and Nancy curtain of the Moselle plateau, and the 
Manonviller bastion, Luneville curtain, and Essey bastion of the 
Saffais plateau (Fig. 118), a combination rendered desirable by 
the direction of the German attack and the change of course 
of the Moselle scarp south of Nancy, the city could be rendered 
inapproachable either from the northeast into the Nancy curtain 




Fig. 118 — Natural bastions and curtains of 
the Nancy region formed by salients and re- 
entrants of the Moselle and Saffais plateaus. 



484 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

or from the southeast into the Luneville curtain, by flanking fire 
from the bastion walls. 

General de Castelnau made his views prevail to such good 
purpose that the fortification of the Nancy region was finally 
authorized, and the work began a few months before war was 
declared. Unfortunately, he could derive little benefit from this 
fact in the battle which raged from August 28 to September 12, 
1914, so little was the important task advanced. But the mas- 
terly way in which the natural fortifications were employed vin- 
dicated the general's opinion as to the exceptional defensive 
value of the terrain. 

We may consider that the Battle of the Grand Couronne 
opened with that portion of the enemy's offensive in the Battle 
of the Trough of Charmes which was directed westward into the 
Luneville curtain against the Saffais escarpment southward from 
Rosieres. In this initial blow against the natural fortifications 
of Nancy the strength of the French position immediately 
revealed itself. Every approach to the escarpment was domi- 
nated by artillery concealed in the ravines dissecting the plateau 
and directed from excellent observation posts along the crest 
(Figs. 102 and 115). "On the 24th a fierce onslaught was made 
against the right of the French position about Saffais, but the 
rush of the attack spent itself, and during the 25th and 26th the 
Germans were forced back step by step in spite of most deter- 
mined efforts to hold their ground." The topographic advantages 
were telling heavily in favor of the defenders, and, when the flank 
attack from the western part of the Manonviller bastion and the 
Saffais plateau farther north threatened to turn defeat into dis- 
aster, the Germans massed their forces against that part of the 
front. Early in September the enemy returned to the assault 
against the Saffais positions but again met a decisive check along 
the plateau wall. 

The next blow was aimed at the Nancy curtain and the 
Amance bastion. Against this impregnable stronghold the 
Kaiser's trained legions were flung in wave after wave, day after 
day, in numbers greatly superior to those of the defenders, 



GRAND COURONNE BATTLE 485 

who were constantly being weakened by heavy withdrawals 
of troops to stem the German onrush farther west. Under cover 
of darkness the gray-clad invaders would debouch from the 
concealing shades of Champenoux Forest and press forward 
into the Nancy curtain (Fig. 114). But, when the light of day re- 
vealed the whole situation to the defenders on the heights, a 
terrible flanking fire would pour upon the Germans from the 
.Amance bastion on the north, where batteries were concealed 
on the reverse slopes of the Mont d' Amance mesa, the Pain de 
Sucre butte, and in the ravines and valleys of the main upland 
spur (Figs. 106 and no) ; and to some extent from the heights of 
the Saffais plateau above Dombasle and the hills between Dom- 
basle and Luneville, forming the western base of the Manonviller 
bastion. Under the murderous fire, directed with great accuracy 
because of the exceptionally fine observation enjoyed by the 
defenders, the Germans would fall slowly back. Thus on the 
plain in the curtain the battle front ebbed and flowed with the 
alternation of day and night, but every attempt to make per- 
manent gains of ground toward Nancy was decisively beaten. 
Against the heights themselves the enemy assaults broke even 
more hopelessly. Concentrations for the attack and columns 
debouching from the cover of the woods were decimated by 
artillery fire directed from above, while a hail of machine-gun 
fire sweeping parallel with the smooth, open slopes below the 
wooded crest mowed the assailants down in rows. A violent 
assault on the Mont Ste. Genevieve sector of the bastion had 
developed early in the struggle. If the Ste. Genevieve-Mont 
Toulon ridge (Fig. 106) of the plateau could be stormed, the way 
would be opened for an advance up the Moselle to Nancy, turning 
the Mont d'Amance position from the rear and shattering the 
whole French scheme of defense based on the Moselle plateau. 
The first attempt against the formidable position (Fig. 108) 
having proved its exceptional strength, the enemy paused to 
deliver a heavy bombardment of two days' duration. The in- 
fantry then advanced to the attack, but was caught in a storm of 
shrapnel from the French 75's so accurately served that the 



486 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE 

ranks melted rapidly under the cruel fire. Machine-gun fire 
sweeping the slopes completed the slaughter. Demoralized by 
the fearful losses inflicted upon them, the assailants withdrew 
into the plain. 

The prize for which the German high command was bidding 
was so precious that the reverses already suffered were insuffi- 
cient to discourage new efforts. A more violent attack against 
the Mont d'Amance position was in preparation, and about 
September i began a violent bombardment by heavy guns lasting 
for several days. Then came the determined assaults by which 
the Germans debouching from the village and forest of Champe- 
noux sought to storm the plateau bastion which formed the key 
to the natural defenses of Nancy. It is reported that the capture 
of the position and the entrance into Nancy were considered so 
important by the German high command that the Kaiser himself 
came to the front to lend his troops the inspiration of his presence, 
and issued the order that Nancy was to be taken at all costs and 
under his own eye. On the 6th and again on the 7th the struggle 
raged with undiminished fury both around Mont Ste. Genevieve 
and the Mont d'Amance. The crest of the former plateau 
spur was won by the enemy on the night of the 7th, but his 
precarious hold on this one advanced spur of the bastion was 
quickly loosened. 

Finally on the 8th came the supreme effort. Sweeping over 
the plain and up the slopes, one gray wave after another melted 
under the accurate French fire. Six times the desperate assaults 
on the impregnable bastion were repeated, and six times the best 
Bavarian troops were hurled reeling back into the plain. "At 
some places the bodies were piled up five or six feet high." But 
the wholesale sacrifice availed nothing against the unshakable 
walls of the plateau. The supreme effort to break through 
the right wing of the Allied front was a costly, a ghastly 
failure, and the beaten armies of Prussian militarism fell back 
close to the German frontier. Both the Battle of the Trough 
of Charmes and the Battle of the Grand Couronne had been 
won by the French, in large measure through a masterly 



SECOND ADVANCE INTO ALSACE 487 

use of the formidable terrain provided by the Moselle and 
Saffais plateaus. 

Second Advance into Alsace 

After the victories of the Marne, the Trough of Charmes, 
and the Grand Couronne, the depleted French forces in the diffi- 
cult country of the Vosges, opposed by likewise depleted enemy 
forces, were able to resume their advance down the steep eastern 
face of the mountain range and through the gateway of Belfort. 
But on both sides other battlefields had assumed such importance 
that henceforth only local operations by limited forces would 
disturb the relative calm of this sector of the front. By the end 
of October the French had descended the short eastern valleys 
as far as the Ballon de Guebwiller and Thann in the southern 
area and had pushed through the Belfort gateway to the line of 
the 111 near Altkirch. The only part of enemy territory held by 
the French throughout the war was the steep eastern side of the 
southern Vosges, where Nature favored the French to an un- 
usual degree. Northward the front climbed obliquely across 
ridges and valleys to the crest near the Pass of Bonhomme, then 
descended the western slope, where the Germans, profiting by 
their railway to the low Saales Pass, were able to keep forces well 
supplied to a certain distance into French territory. Bitter 
struggles for Hartmannsweilerkopf and other dominating 
points would ensue in the following months; but to all appear- 
ances the war ended in a stalemate on the Battlefield of Lorraine. 
The great offensive which was to have been launched from the 
plateau strongholds on November 14, 191 8 (pp. 412, 444), as the 
knock-out blow to bring the German colossus to its knees, was 
forestalled by the armistice. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO: 
THE ALPINE-AND-PIEDMONT BATTLEFIELD 

The Trentine Alps consist of complex masses of rocks intensely 
folded and broken and deeply dissected by stream erosion. Be- 
cause the rock masses were raised more than 10,000 feet above 
sea level in their higher parts, streams cut remarkably deep 
canyons, giving a wild, mountainous country most difficult to 
traverse. The difficulties were increased many fold when the ice 
streams of the glacial period flowed down the valleys, cutting 
them much deeper, steepening the valley walls into rocky preci- 
pices, leaving the side valleys hanging hundreds of feet above the 
floors of the overdeepened main valleys, sharpening the inter- 
valley ridges into knife-edge aretes, and carving the dome-shaped 
peaks into jagged needles and horns. The resulting topography 
is one of indescribable ruggedness (PI. VII), in which precipitous 
cliffs, inaccessible peaks, steep-sided divides, and hanging valleys 
present to the engineer almost insurmountable obstacles. Even 
in time of peace man makes his way across this mighty Alpine 
barrier only by means of highways which zigzag dizzily over lofty 
ridges and railroads which rise by devious looped detours into 
side valleys or through tunnels cut in the solid rock, to reach the 
few practicable passes. 

It requires no great imaginative power to realize that to make 
war in such a region must tax to the utmost the ingenuity of 
man. And yet for a variety of reasons, both political and 
military, the Trentine Alps were destined to become one of the 
two main battlefields of the Austro-Italian front. The Italian 

Note — For Chapters XI and XII the reader should constantly consult the 
sketch maps (Figs. 119 and 120) and, in the pocket, the block diagram of the battle- 
field (PI. VII). 



GENERAL ASPECT 489 

army engineers, worthy successors of the Romans in the art of 
road construction, built magnificent highways to apparently inac- 
cessible points, over which autocamions could speed swiftly to the 
battle front on the peaks, bearing their burdens of men, munitions, 
and material (Fig. 121). If a precipice barred the path, the 
indomitable workmen blasted their way into it and by a system 
of tunnels scaled the barrier (Fig. 123). All along the Alpine 
battle line there soon appeared a system of these remarkable 
roads which made it possible to supply armies and carry on cam- 
paigns in a region seemingly designed by Nature to separate 
peoples by an impassable wall (Fig. 122). 

In regions where not even the genius of the Italian engineer 
could carry roads, the telef erica (Fig. 124), or aerial tram, raised 
men and provisions, guns and munitions, to battle grounds 
among the clouds and lowered the wounded to hospitals in the 
valleys far below. On the lofty Adamello six successive 
hoists by as many teleferica lines raised the Italian soldier 
between 3,000 and 4,000 feet to the reserve positions behind 
the main front line; and, when Monte Grappa became the 
mountain buttress of the Piave front, great numbers of these 
aerial cables were used to aid the roads in supplying troops on 
that important height. Between teleferica stations tramways 
drawn by mules sometimes traversed the high mountain valleys, 
and, where snow fields and glaciers lay along the spectacular 
battle ground, dog sleds (Fig. 126) formed the line of communi- 
cations, either across the surface or through tunnels several 
miles long in the ice, according to the degree of exposure to 
enemy fire. Assuredly this is the terrain par excellence of "moun- 
tain warfare." 

Nor would the story of the adaptation of methods of warfare 
to this mountainous country be complete, even had we covered 
fully the question of communication lines. Big guns with 
specially devised wheels which facilitated the ascent of very steep 
slopes; sandbag breastworks or stone walls replacing trenches 
where impossible to excavate the latter in the solid rock; white 
uniforms for portions of the front on snow fields (Fig. 127); 



490 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 







Alpine troops on skis carrying ice axes and alpenstocks as 
essential parts of their equipment; electric motor lorries with 
trolleys driven up the steepest road by power derived from local 



GENERAL ASPECT 491 

mountain torrents — these are but a few of the responses which 
the contestants on one side or the other made to the special 
physical conditions which confronted them on the Alpine front. 
The fixing corps had to contend with vast stretches of country 
affording no suitable landing place and with the treacherous air 
currents peculiarly frequent above such rugged terrains. The 
supplying of water to the troops engaged on high mountain 
ridges and plateaus of fissured limestone presented a series of 
complex problems which became acute whenever an advance 
was attempted. These problems were solved by the construction 
of great aqueducts and pumping plants, by the laying of miles of 
pipe lines leading to the stationary sectors, and by the organiza- 
tion of trains of pack animals to distribute the precious fluid to the 
most inaccessible portions of the field as rapidly as the front was 
pushed forward in any given sector. Men and mules were lost in 
crevasses in the glaciers. Avalanches, some starting from natural 
causes, many dislodged by heavy artillery fire, swept down upon 
helpless troops, a single battalion advancing to attack losing 
forty of its number in this manner. 

Such was the warfare along the northern Italian frontier, and 
such the terrain upon which it was waged. An observer looking 
over the wild waste of Alpine crags from some lofty summit or 
gazing down upon the white-capped waves of the frozen granite 
sea from some soaring airplane (Fig. 128) would scarcely imagine 
that armies could find footing in the wilderness of ice and rock, 
much less fight battles there. Yet through the maze of peaks 
and ridges there pass narrow runways which were threaded 
by migrating hordes before the dawn of history, corridors 
along which invading armies advanced and retreated as the 
walls echoed the din of early battles. Roman legions conquered 
the mountain fastnesses and passed beyond to subdue the lands 
to the north. In later centuries rude invaders from the north 
repeatedly reached the sunny south through these same moun- 
tains. Napoleon's armies marched and countermarched from 
victory to victory in this forbidding realm, as well as on the open 
plains of other lands. Clearly there must be, either in the terrain 



492 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

itself or in its position with respect to other lands, or perhaps in 
both, something which made of it one of the predestined battle- 
fields of Europe. 

Stretching southward from the southern foothills of the Alps 
is the alluvial plain of the Piedmont, 1 formed of rock debris 
eroded from the mountains and spread out in great fans along 
the mountain base. The rivers which made this alluvial deposit 
flow southeastward down its slope to the Po or to the Adriatic 
(Fig. 119). Near the sea the plain is very low and marshy (Fig. 
129) and is characterized by extensive lagoons back of narrow 
barrier beaches. This lagoon-and-marsh belt varies in width from 
ten to thirty miles or more and interposes a serious obstacle to the 
movement of troops. But between the marshes and the moun- 
tains only the transverse rivers oppose the advance of armies 
over the level surface of the plain. Some of these rivers, par- 
ticularly the Tagliamento and the Piave, have an extraordi- 
narily braided pattern. The interlacing network of channels 
crossed by good bridges only at infrequent intervals, the level 
sand bars exposing troops to the murderous hail of a grazing 
machine-gun and rifle fire (Fig. 130), and the good defensive 
positions formed by dikes built to retain flood waters (Fig. 131) 
make of these rivers strong military barriers, despite the absence 
of the steep, high banks which help to make the mountain val- 
leys difficult to cross. 

Strategic Position of the Trentine Alps 

Among the circumstances which determined that the Trentino 
should become an important battlefield in the World War was 
the fact that it constituted one of the "unredeemed provinces" 
of Italy. This was, indeed, one of the principal factors deter- 
mining Italy's entrance into the struggle on the side of the 
Entente, despite her alliance with the Central Powers. It is 

1 The word is here used in the physiographic and not in the political sense. 
The Italian province of the Piedmont, whose name is, of course, derived from its 
physical character, takes in only the westernmost section of the foothill plain. 
The portion of the plain here under discussion is politically part of Lombardy- 
Venice. 



STRATEGIC POSITION 



493 




Fig. 120 — Generalized sketch map of the Battlefield of the Trentino. White areas 
represent lowlands or valley trenches, ruled areas plateaus, cross-ruled areas moun- 
tains. See also the general map of the Italian theater of war (Fig. 119) and the block 
diagram of the Trentino (PI. VII). 



true that Italy demanded much more territory than she could 
justly claim on the basis of nationality or the right of peoples 
to decide their own destiny. While the southern part of the 



494 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 




6 M 



(^ .2 

Ji S 

-G O 



gltt 



ge 

ax: 









2;- 






STRATEGIC POSITION 



495 




496 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 



Trentino is overwhelmingly Italian, the northern part, or 
"Alto Adige," as the Italians call the upper basin of the Adige 
(Etsch) River, is as overwhelmingly German, and has been so 
for centuries. The fundamental reasons for Italy's claim to 
the lands of Andreas Hofer and the Tyrolese patriots were 
purely strategic, and the historical and other arguments offi- 




Fig. 123 — New Italian military road zigzagging up a steep precipice on the slope of 
Monte Baldo. Several tunnels may be noted within the space of a few hundred yards. 



cially advanced in support of the claim were obviously weak. 
But the claim to the southern Trentino on racial grounds was 
valid, and strong strategic arguments could be adduced to 
support demands for further territory beyond the racial bound- 
ary. This was sufficient to bring the Trentino into the field 
as a prize of war, as well as a field of maneuver for hostile armies; 
and, in accordance with the rule "if you want a piece of ground 
you must sit on it," it was considered highly important that 
Italian armies should affirm the right of the kingdom to the 
territory in question by doing all that was practicable to conquer 



STRATEGIC POSITION 



497 



it. That Austria should dispute the attempted conquest was 
inevitable, and hence the two contestants were sure to clash 
upon the difficult terrain of the Trentine Alps. 

The Battlefield of the Trentino is of peculiar interest also 
because it lay across the shortest and easiest route from the 
land of Italy's strongest foe, Germany, to the Italian frontier. 




Fig. 124 — A teleferica on the slope of the Adamello group. 



The Brenner Pass, only 4,495 feet high, is not only one of the 
lowest and most accessible passes in the Alps but is the only 
one by which the central part of the massive barrier can be 
crossed without traversing other additional passes. Here, and 
here only, valleys cut clear through to the central axis on either 
side, and a single low gap divides the two transverse corridors. 
This was the direct route from Berlin to Rome in time of peace, 
and from time immemorial the chief route for invading Italy 
from the north. The natural defenses against such invasion are 
found on the Battlefield of the Trentino. 



498 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 



The Form of Italy 
It was not merely the fact that Italy was in danger of attack 
from the north which made the Trentine Alps so vital from the 
military standpoint. The geographic form of Italy and the 
location of her great industrial regions both conferred upon this 
northern barrier a degree of importance which it might not have 
possessed under other conditions. The form of the Italian 

peninsula renders the rapid mo- 
bilization of Italy's man power 
peculiarly difficult. The penin- 
sula is long and narrow (for nearly 
600 miles of its length it averages 
little more than 100 miles in 
breadth), and the danger zone is 
at one extremity. Imagine Cali- 
fornia to be about half its present 
width, surrounded by water on 
both sides, and threatened at the 
northern end by an enemy able to 
concentrate quickly from many 
directions (Fig. 125). Such is 
Italy's situation. Over 55 per 
cent of her man power comes from 
south of the constriction near the 
latitude of Bologna and must 
journey to and through that con- 
striction on four main railway lines, of which three must traverse 
the Apennine mountain barrier and two can be destroyed from 
the sea. Italy's geographic form thus makes her peculiarly de- 
pendent upon the natural defensive qualities of her northern 
frontier, which a fraction of her man power must be able to 
defend successfully against greatly superior numbers until the 
whole can be mobilized. The labyrinth of ridges and peaks form- 
ing the Battlefield of the Trentino is admirably suited to perform 
this function. When we add the fact that Italy's vital indus- 
trial regions are in the north, centering about Milan, and de- 




Fig. 125 — Comparison of Italy 
and California, same scale and 
orientation, to illustrate the diffi- 
culty of mobilization to meet an 
attack along the northern frontier, 
owing to the long, narrow form of the 
Italian peninsula. Italy has, however, 
the advantage of more railways. 



STRATEGIC POSITION 



499 



pend for their protection on the defense of the Alpine bar- 
rier, the strategic significance of this northern battlefield can 
readily be appreciated. 

Relation of the Trentino and Isonzo Battlefields 

The full importance of the Battlefield of the Trentino does 
not become apparent, however, until we consider it in relation 





Fig. 126 — Crossing the glaciers of the high Adamello group by dog sleds. 
This was the usual route to this part of the Italian front in the difficult terrain 
between the Noce-Avisio and Giudicaria-Val Sugana corridors. 



to another battlefield, that of the Isonzo (p. 541), on the eastern 
frontier. The Piedmont plain may be attacked either from the 
north or from the east. Armies defending the eastern frontier 
necessarily depend upon supply lines which traverse the plain 
for 150 miles in sight of an enemy advancing over the northern 
mountains. Hence the eastern armies must always fight under 
the menace of a disaster which is inevitable if the enemy on the 
north succeeds in reaching the plain and cutting their communi- 



500 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 



cations. In the World War Cadorna's eastern operations came 
to an abrupt halt in May, 1916, when he was compelled to 
transfer large forces westward to check the dangerous Austrian 
advance across the Asiago plateau almost to the edge of the 
plains. Irretrievable disaster to the eastern armies was nar- 




^**^" "35s? J\!" 







Fig. 127 — Special costumes worn by the "Alpini" in mountain warfare on snow- 
covered terrain. (Italian official photograph.) 



rowly averted. The magnitude of the Caporetto disaster, 
consequent upon the Teutonic armies breaking through to the 
plains near the extreme eastern end of the northern frontier, 
enables one to picture the far more serious consequences which 
must have ensued if the northern mountain barrier had been 
breached farther west and the communications of the eastern 
armies destroyed 150 miles in their rear. Some idea of the 
wonderful command of the Italian plain possessed by an enemy 
on the dominating mountains may be secured from Figure 132, 
from a photograph taken looking southward from Monte Grappa, 



STRATEGIC POSITION 



5oi 



upon the northern end of which the Austrians maintained a firm 
hold for many months. 

It is evident that the Teutonic attack condemned the Italians 
to conduct two principal campaigns, a northern and an eastern. 
Since their military forces would not admit of two offensive 




Fig. 128— Tlie Monte Pasubio massif as seen from an airplane, showing the 
spectacular surroundings of the battle front on the Alpine heights. (Italian official 
photograph.) 



campaigns against so powerful an enemy, at least one of these 
campaigns had to be defensive. Topographic conditions dictrted 
that the defensive campaign should be the northern one, for 
a successful offensive across the main Alpine barrier, supported 
by but one through railway line, had less chance of success 
than an offensive in the east, where the terrain was less 
difficult, railways were more numerous, and support by sea was 
possible. The Battlefield of the Trentino, with its defensive 
r61e, thus entered most vitally into the whole scheme of 
Italian military operations. 



502 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

Position of River Defenses 

Should Italy's eastern defenses be breached, the natural 
defensive lines which would remain to the Italian armies on that 
front are the rivers traversing the gently sloping Piedmont 
plain from the mountains to the sea. After the Isonzo the 
Tagliamento, then the Livenza, Piave, Brenta, Bacchiglione, 
Adige, and finally the Po, in succession offer natural obstacles 
of no mean value at which enemy pursuit might be checked. 
Following the Caporetto disaster it was on the Piave that the 
fleeing Italian armies finally made a successful stand (Fig. 133). 
Back of this barrier other lines of defense were then prepared or 
reconnoitred along the Brenta, the Bacchiglione, the Adige, and 
the Lake Garda-Mincio River-Po system. It will be observed 
that every one of these defensive lines rested its right upon the 
coastal marshes and the sea, its left upon the Alps. The Battle- 
field of the Trentino thus became the critical field of operations, 
upon the successful defense of which the safety of the Italian 
armies depended. Should the mountain barrier be breached, the 
defensive lines in question would be taken in the flank and rear 
(Fig. 119). It was apparently because the Adige could be out- 
flanked only at two points which were capable of being effec- 
tively blocked (the Lake Garda and Chiese River gateways) 
as well as because the river was "broad, swift and deep, never ford- 
able" that Napoleon considered it the best defensive barrier 
among these streams. 2 

It will be pertinent now to inquire what facilities for defense 
this terrain offers to the army which controls it. 

Elements of a Strong Defensive Terrain 

The extreme ruggedness of the Trentine mountains, with 
their lofty ridges and glacier-clad peaks, their towering precipices 
and yawning abysses, has been sufficiently emphasized on earlier 
pages. Our attention may now be directed to that system 

2 Napoleon Buonaparte: Memoires pour servir a. l'histoire de France, Paris, 1823, 
Vol. 3, p. 126. 



DEFENSIVE ELEMENTS OF TERRAIN 



503 



observable in the mountainous highlands and valley depressions 
which both reinforces and makes available the defensive possi- 
bilities of this majestic region. In pursuing our investigation of 
the,Trentine terrain it is desirable to keep in mind certain 
generalizations which our previous study of the battlefields of 





Fig. 129 — Coastal marshes bordering the Adriatic at the foot of the Piedmont 
plain. These marshes assured protection to the Italian right wing on the Piave 
against a flanking movement by the enemy. (Italian official photograph.) 



France would appear to justify. These relate to the elements of 
terrain which might be looked for in the ideal battlefield most per- 
fectly adapted to defense, yet permitting easy transition to the of- 
fensive as occasion may warrant. Briefly stated, these generaliza- 
tions might be formulated in some such terms as the following: 
The terrain should constitute a natural topographic barrier, 
impassable except at a few points, where the direction and 
nature of the enemy attack are restricted and known to the 
defenders. A lofty Alpine watershed, crossed by a limited 
number of narrow passes, is ideal in this respect. 



504 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

In general the defensive front should be the shortest possible 
strategic line (although not the shortest line tactically, as ex- 
plained below), in order to reduce to a minimum the forces re- 
quired to hold it. An exception to the above generalization 
occurs where a longer front forms a salient projecting into the 
enemy's territory and is so situated topographically as to be 
easily defended while at the same time offering good interior 
lines for use in offensive operations. 

The defensive front should not, in detail, be a straight line, 
but should form a series of bastions and curtains, providing 
ample opportunity for flanking and enfilading fire. 

The topography of the battlefield should provide three further 
elements of natural fortifications: rivers, lakes, or marshes form- 
ing natural moats; exposed valley sides or mountain slopes 
forming natural glacis; and, back of these, steep and im- 
passable walls or scarps. Rivers, lakes, and marshes, always 
serious obstacles to the rapid advance and effective supply of 
troops, have, as already noted, assumed an increased importance 
since tanks have become such a valuable instrument of offen- 
sive warfare; for they effectively check tanks and prevent 
them from destroying protective wire entanglements. Valley 
walls and hill or mountain slopes increase the physical labor 
of the attacking force, tend to impose upon the troops below 
the conviction that they are at a disadvantage and to give to 
the defenders above a moral feeling of superiority and the vital 
advantage of better observation. The slopes of the natural glacis 
should be of moderate inclination, open and smooth, affording a 
good field of fire. The summit portion or wall should be not only 
steep and inaccessible but also high enough to command a good 
view of all approaches to the moat. 

There should be, back of the fighting front and parallel to it, 
a valley or glacial trench forming a lateral corridor through which 
troops and supplies may be rapidly and safely shifted from one 
point to another along the battle line. If close to the front, the 
corridor must be so deep and steep-sided, or the barrier between 
it and the enemy so high, that the floor is in a dead angle, even 



DEFENSIVE ELEMENTS OF TERRAIN 505 





Fig. 130 — Multiple channels and sand barsofthePiave River.showingenemy troops 
slain in attempting to cross the obstacle. It was the Piave barrier which finally halted 
the Austrian advance after the disaster of Caporetto. (Italian official photograph.) 

Fig. 131 — Machine-gun positions along a dike bordering the Piave River. The 
stream itself forms a natural moat in front of the dike. (Italian official photograph.) 



506 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

during high-angle artillery fire. Protection is thus also afforded 
for large masses of reserve troops and supplies, both on the 
corridor floor and on the protected wall. 

There must be not one but a series of parallel defensive 
positions of the type described in the foregoing paragraphs, so 
that, if one is breached by enemy attacks, the others will check 
his advance. There should also be a number of easily defended 
transverse lines connecting each main position with the next 
parallel position behind it, so that an enemy success resulting 
in the breaching of one defensive position may be contained 
and thus localized to a small sector. 

There should be no river, marsh, or lake barrier behind the 
defensive positions of sufficient magnitude or so insufficiently 
bridged as to imperil the retreat of the defenders in case retreat 
becomes necessary. Since an embarrassing river obstacle in one 
of the lateral corridors behind a first defensive position may be- 
come a valuable protective moat capable of checking an enemy 
who has broken through that first position, it is evident that the 
advantages and disadvantages of such a river position must be 
weighed against each other. If bridges are numerous and well 
protected from enemy fire, the river will not greatly embarrass 
the retreat; but after the bridges are destroyed it will effectively 
check enemy pursuit. 

The topography should provide numerous high points from 
which excellent visibility of enemy back areas may be assured. 
This is essential to the most effective control of artillery fire and 
is important as a means of maintaining continuous watch over 
all the enemy's movements behind his front. 

The defensive positions should be served by a good network of 
railways and roads. This is one of the elements most essential 
to a strong defense. Even the poorest natural positions may be 
well defended by armies having the advantage of excellent rail- 
way communications, as was amply demonstrated in the early 
part of the World War by the success of the German armies 
against the Russians whenever the former operated in contact 



SURFACE FEATURES 507 

with their strategic railway system along the otherwise weak 
Russo-German frontier. 

The defensive terrain should include either bridgehead posi- 
tions defended by a favorable topography, or positions from 
which it will be comparatively easy to flank the enemy out of ter- 
ritory which may be made to serve as a bridgehead, on the farther 
side of the natural defensive moat formed by river valley, lake, or 
marsh. Otherwise, as was made clear in the study of the Battle- 
field of Lorraine, the army of defense may, after repulsing enemy 
attacks, find it impossible to debouch from behind the barrier, 
and may thus be condemned to a wholly defensive campaign 
when offensive operations are essential to a military decision. 

With the elements of a strong defensive terrain in mind, let us 
examine the military geography of the Trentino region. 

Surface Features of the Battlefield of the Trentino 
Through the maze of rugged mountains forming the central 
Alps there runs, in a general east-west direction, a series of 
parallel glacial trenches of the greatest strategic importance, 
forming four principal corridors (Fig. 120) which control move- 
ments east and west parallel to the Alpine crest. Between 
the corridors are high mountain walls, but at intervals a deep 
transverse trench connects one corridor with its neighbor to 
the north or south, or a fairly accessible pass across the inter- 
vening barrier permits somewhat more difficult communica- 
tion. The most noteworthy of these transverse connections is a 
continuous north-south trench formed by the valleys of two 
streams flowing north and south from the Brenner Pass. This 
is the great trench carrying the principal railway and road 
connecting Italy with Germany, the main north-south route 
of commerce and travel already mentioned. It crosses and 
connects all of the east-west lateral corridors. 

the inn corridor 
If we examine the lateral corridors more closely, we note that 
the northern one is wholly in Austrian territory and is the only 



508 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 




S 8 



§ is 



o s 



ca c ■ 



3"° = 



VINTSCHGAU-PUSTERTAL CORRIDOR 509 

one of the four provided with railway communication through- 
out its entire length. It is a very striking topographic feature 
(Fig. 134), and, as it is drained by the Inn River for most of its 
length, it may be called the Inn corridor. Near its western end 
the corridor is interrupted by a low divide at Arlberg,* but the 
Arlberg tunnel carries the railway through into the valley of the 
111, a tributary of the upper Rhine, whence communication on 
westward is very easy. This corridor is, in fact, part of the 
highly important route nearly 400 miles long connecting Vienna, 
through the Alps, with Bregenz on Lake Constance. 

THE VINTSCHGAU-PUSTERTAL CORRIDOR 

South of the Inn corridor and roughly parallel to it is the long 
trench formed by the Vintschgau, Pustertal, and connecting 
valleys (Fig. 120). This may be called the Vintschgau-Pustertal 
corridor. Its western end (Engadine) is drained by the upper 
Inn River and lies in Switzerland; the remainder lay wholly in 
Austrian territory before the war but, except for the portion of 
the Pustertal east of the low divide at Toblach, was drained by 
branches of the Adige River southward into Italy. The main 
corridor passes south of the Sarntal Alps, by Bozen, but there 
is an alternative passage around the northern side of the Sarn- 
tal mass, by Sterzing. This northern passage is completely 
interrupted at one point by a high divide, the Jaufen Pass 
(6,990 feet), which is, however, crossed by a practicable road, 
much used in ancient and medieval times. The main corridor 
is provided with railway communication, except near its western 
end. Some conception of its usually open character may be 
gained from Figure 135, but it narrows to gorgelike dimen- 
sions at Finstermtinz (Fig. 136), just north of the Reschen Schei- 
deck Pass, and at Klausen and Miihlbach. Like the Inn corridor, 
it is part of a vitally important through route, 330 miles long, con- 
necting Marburg on the eastern edge of the Alps with the Swiss 

* Unless otherwise stated, places mentioned in Chapters XI and XII may be 
located on Fig. 120 or PI. VII. 



510 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

frontier. In the region under consideration the only connection 
between the Inn corridor and the Vintschgau-Pustertal corridor 
is by road and railway over the Brenner Pass and by carriage 
road (possibly now by rail) up the Inn valley from Landeck to 
the Reschen-Scheideck Pass. 

THE NOCE-AVISIO CORRIDOR 

The third corridor is drained by the Noce and Avisio Rivers 
in its central portion, by the upper Oglio and the Adda west of 
Tonale Pass, and by the upper Piave and Tagliamento east of 
Cortina d'Ampezzo (Fig. 120). It will be called the Noce-Avisio 
corridor, from its more important central portion. In general its 
floor is less open and less continuous than is the case of the two 
corridors previously described, and it carries railways only for 
short distances in its central portion and in its western end; but it 
is provided with roads throughout its length. Several passes 
interrupt the trench floor, one of the best known being Tonale 
Pass; but even here the continuity of the trench walls is 
clearly apparent. As in the case of the second corridor, the third 
is provided with alternative passageways near its central portion : 
a northern one carrying a good road over a low pass and reaching 
the Adige valley at Egna, and a southern one down the gorgelike 
lower Avisio valley, traversed by a practicable road. Both the 
eastern and western ends of the third corridor were in Italian 
territory before the war; but the Italians could not make effective 
use of the ends so long as- the whole central portion, from Tonale 
Pass to Cortina d'Ampezzo, lay in the southward projecting 
triangle of the Austrian Trentino. Communication between 
the Vintschgau-Pustertal corridor and the Noce-Avisio corridor is 
easy in the central zone by means of the Brenner railway and 
carriage road through the main north-south Adige trench, 
by local mountain railway and mountain road from Bozen 
to Cles, and by a good road from Bozen southeastward over the 
Rosengarten mountains. To the west a single carriage road, the 
highest in the Alps (over 9,000 feet), across the lofty and difficult 
Stelvio Pass connects the Vintschgau with the third corridor, west 



GIUDICARIA-VAL SUGANA CORRIDOR 



5ii 



of Tonale Pass; and to the east the connection is effected by 
three carriage roads leading from the Pustertal southward across 
the mountain barrier. 

THE GIUDICARIA-VAL SUGANA CORRIDOR 

The fourth and southernmost corridor is composed in part of 
the Giudicaria and Val Sugana trenches but is continued north- 




Fig. 133 — Italian first-line trenches behind the defensive barrier of the Piave. 
(Italian official photograph.) 

eastward by the upper Piave valley until it coalesces with the 
third corridor near Pieve di Cadore (Fig. 120). We may call this 
southern trench system the Giudicaria- Val Sugana corridor, after 
its two best known elements. A good road traverses its entire 
length, and both the Val Sugana and the Piave valley sectors 
carry railways; but the railways in these two sectors are as yet 
unconnected, and there is no railway in the western third (Giudi- 
caria sector). At Trent the corridor divides into two branches, 
after the manner of the two next north, the northern branch con- 



5i2 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 




■F % 



GIUDICARIA-VAL SUGANA CORRIDOR 



513 




514 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

tinuing west and then southwest past Tione, the southern branch 
turning south to Rovereto and then west past Riva. Near 
Brescia this corridor opens upon the Piedmont plain. Just as in 
the case of the third corridor, Italy formerly held only the 
eastern and western extremities of the fourth. The vital central 
sector, from Lake Idro to the eastern end of the Val Sugana, was 
included in the southward projecting peninsula of Austrian terri- 
tory. At Trent the Giudicaria-Val Sugana corridor and the Noce- 
Avisio corridor next north are almost in contact and are con- 
nected by railway and carriage road through the north-south 
Adige trench. Eastward as far as the junction of the third and 
fourth corridors the only connection between the two is one car- 
riage road across the broad intervening mountain barrier, from 
Predazzo to Feltre. West of Trent there is likewise but one fair 
carriage road crossing the barrier from Male in the Noce valley to 
Tione in the Giudicaria; but a railway running from Edolo west 
of Tonale Pass in the third corridor, southward through the 
glacial trench of the Val Camonica, issues upon the plain only a 
few miles west of the western end of the fourth corridor. 

THE MOUNTAIN BARRIERS 

No detailed description of the mountain barriers separating 
the parallel lateral corridors is necessary. In every case the 
barrier consists of high, inaccessible, and often glacier-clad peaks 
and ridges, which, as we have already seen, are crossed in but few 
places by practicable passes or connecting trenches. The barrier 
which is on the whole the broadest, highest, most extensively 
glacier-clad and least broken by cross passages is that between 
the Inn and Vintschgau-Pustertal corridors. The Otztal group 
(Fig. 135) alone has more than 100 peaks approaching or exceed- 
ing 10,000 feet in altitude and carries 229 separate glaciers. 
Assuredly the best strategic frontier for northern Italy lay along 
this watershed barrier. Between the Vintschgau-Pustertal and 
the Noce-Avisio corridors we have the high, glacier-clad Or tier 
group (Fig. 137) in the west and the formidable Carnic Alps 
in the east. The central portion of this barrier is less imposing 



THE MOUNTAIN BARRIERS 



5i5 




Fig. 136— The wild mountain gorge forming the Finstermiinz Pass, through which 
traffic over the Reschen-Scheideck col on the "Brenner watershed" must cross. 



516 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

but nevertheless is a natural obstacle of the first importance. 
The frontier which Italy was willing to accept from Austria, 
rather than enter the war against her, lay within this barrier 
belt, except that it crossed to the Sarntal Alps between the 
alternative passageways north of Bozen. The barrier between 
the Noce-Avisio and the Giudicaria-Val Sugana corridors in- 
cludes within its mass the high, inaccessible Adamello group 
(Fig. 126) and the Brenta mountains northwest of Trent, while 
to the northeast lie the Dolomite Alps, a broad zone of wild, 
mountainous terrain, including the Marmolada and Civetta 
groups. 

South of the Giudicaria-Val Sugana corridor and separating it 
from the Piedmont plain is a mountain barrier of rather formida- 
ble proportions, despite the numerous gateways which open 
through it to the plains. Three railways and half a dozen good 
roads traverse it. In this mass are found the high ridge of Monte 
Baldo, Monte Pasubio, and the maze of peaks surrounding Monte 
Grappa (Fig. 128 and PL XI, B). Between the latter two massifs 
lies the high Asiago plateau, or plateau of the Sette Comuni (PI. 
X, B), broken by a steep escarpment into two benches or steps, 
the lower of which is from 4,000 to 4,500 feet above sea level, the 
upper being about 1,000 feet higher (Fig. 138). Through this 
plateau the Astico and Assa Rivers, after heading near the Adige 
trench, cut deep pathways from the higher to the lower bench 
and, in the case of the Astico, through the lower bench to the 
Piedmont plain; while the Brenta River on leaving the Val 
Sugana corridor turns sharply southward through a wild gorge 
between the Asiago plateau and the Grappa massif to reach the 
plain at Bassano. These were dangerous gateways from Austria 
into Italy, the last-mentioned being guarded by the famous for- 
tress of Primolano. It was the Italian positions on the Monte 
Baldo-Pasubio-Grappa mountain barrier which protected the 
Piedmont plain to the south from invasion during the World 
War. In respect to this barrier the plain with its railway 
system takes the place of a natural corridor supplying lateral 
communications. 



ADIGE TRENCH 



517 



THE ADIGE TRENCH 

All of the mountain barriers, as well as all of the lateral corri- 
dors, are cut transversely near the central zone by the great 
north-south Adige trench (Fig. 122 and PI. XI, B) and its continua- 
tion as the valley of the Sill north of the Brenner Pass. Through 
this main north-south trench runs the Brenner railway, giving 




Fig. 137 — The Konigspitze, part of the glacier-clad Ortler group forming the lofty 
mountain barrier between the Vintschgau and Noce corridors in the Trentino. 



access to, and connecting with most of the railways in, the lateral 
corridors. Manifestly the three vitally important elements in the 
military geography of this section of the Alps are the four east- 
west mountain barriers, the four east-west lateral corridors, and 
the one main north-south transverse trench. Of secondary im- 
portance are the minor north-south connecting trenches. 

MILITARY STRENGTH OF THE TRENTINE BARRIERS 

To a remarkable degree the Battlefield of the Trentine Alps 
fulfills the requirements of the ideal defensive terrain as summa- 



518 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 




STRENGTH OF BARRIERS 519 

rized on earlier pages. It constitutes a most formidable bar- 
rier which armies can attack at comparatively few points. 
The successive positions form strategically short lines, although 
tactically of such form as occasionally to offer salients and re- 
entrants capable of being effectively defended, as for example 
the horseshoe-shaped bastion of the Sarntal Alps, permitting 
enfilading fire along both the Vintschgau and Pustertal trenches; 
and the Bozen basin, commanded by the heights to the east and 
west. Each mountain barrier is fronted by a natural moat in the 
form of one of the glacial trenches through which flow one or more 
rivers, and has behind it a deep, lateral corridor carrying roads 
and railways. The river is not always of sufficient volume to be 
a serious obstacle in itself, but the exposed valley floor is not only 
difficult to traverse under fire but usually contains smoothly 
sloping alluvial fans forming a natural glacis easy to sweep 
with grazing machine-gun fire. As each fan is convex upward 
in cross profile and rises many feet above the valley floor, 
the crest offers a commanding position enfilading the length of 
the valley, the half toward the enemy forming a smooth glacis 
and the other half an area where secondary defensive positions 
hidden from hostile view may be organized. Trenches on the 
fans may be concealed behind existing terraces and stone walls, 
the stream channel across each one serves either as fosse or com- 
munication trench, and the gorge in the mountain wall at the 
head of the fan provides shelter for reserve troops. A significant 
proportion of the defensive positions in the mountain trenches 
were accordingly based on the alluvial fans or cones. The 
four parallel trenches assure as many successive lines of defense, 
and, as they are connected by easily defended cross trenches or 
passes, the problem of localizing an enemy irruption into a given 
portion of any trench is much simplified. Visibility of enemy 
back areas is difficult in a mountainous terrain, and for this 
reason the Italians suffered more than one unpleasant surprise 
attack; nor is the railway system serving the defensive positions 
what one could desire. Yet despite these deficiencies, the 
favorable elements of the terrain are so preponderant that it is 



520 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

no exaggeration to say that the Battlefield of the Trentino pre- 
sents one of the strongest natural defensive systems to be found 
anywhere in the world. 

POSITION OF THE AUSTRIAN FRONTIER 

In 1914 Italy suffered from the fact that the Austrian frontier, 
drawn so as to impose on the southern kingdom a fatal strategic 
disadvantage, accomplished in advance of hostilities precisely 
what a hostile army would seek to do with any series of defensive 
positions, natural or artificial. It drove a wedge clear through 
the successive mountain barriers and valley trenches to the last 
crest overlooking the Piedmont plain (Fig. 120). It was possible,- 
in fact, for Austrian armies standing on the frontier, or even well 
north of it, to see far across the plain and observe at leisure trains 
passing on the vital railways supplying the Italian armies both 
in the Trentino and 150 miles away on the eastern frontier. 
Italian armies in the plain, on looking up to the crests, saw the 
enemy frontier passing from peak to peak and dominating them 
from its lofty position. This frontier, furthermore, systematically 
beheaded even small valleys descending into the Italian plain so 
as to secure to Austria strategic control of a large majority of the 
practicable passes. The Italian people could not rest secure in 
their own house so long as an hereditary enemy perched threaten- 
ingly on the threshold. To remove this intolerable frontier to a 
safe position farther back in the mountains was a perfectly under- 
standable and wholly legitimate aim of Italian policy. Whether 
it was wise for Italy to demand and for the Allies to consent that 
the frontier should be pushed far into German territory is a 
political question which need not here be discussed. 

In full possession of this strategic salient for many long years, 
Austria had so fortified it as to render it practically impregnable, 
an easy thing to do in a terrain so favorable to defensive warfare. 
Mountain peaks were honeycombed with tunnels, gun cham- 
bers, ammunition storage vaults, quarters for officers and men, 
and thus transformed into rocky strongholds from which hidden 
artillery could pour a destructive fire on any attacking force (Fig. 



POSITION OF AUSTRIAN FRONTIER 



521 



139). From a central position like Trent any threatened portion 
of the long frontier rimming the salient on the west, south, and 
east could promptly be strengthened by reserves, or an offensive 
could be launched with overwhelming suddenness against the 
Italians, who, even if well aware of the concentration for the 




Fig. 139 — Gun position at exit of a tunnel excavated in the solid rock of an Alpine 
mountain. The sides of certain mountains in the Trentino facing the direction of 
enemy attack were pierced by great numbers of such openings, which transformed the 
natural obstacles into almost impregnable fortresses. (Italian official photograph.) 



attack, could not foretell against what part of the long line the 
blow would be hurled at the last moment. Thus were they con- 
fronted with the almost impossible task of holding the whole line 
in strength sufficient to contain the maximum force the Teutons 
might suddenly concentrate against any part of it. To shift 
troops quickly from one part of this front to the other was impos- 
sible, because the wedge of hostile territory driven through the 
whole defensive system of the Trentino blocked the corridors 
along which alone could rapid transfers be made. Italian units 



522 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

operating in the western and eastern ends of the same corridor 
were completely isolated from each other and denied any possi- 
bility of effective co-operation in their campaigns. If one desired 
to send troops to support the other, a long delay was necessary 
while the troops to be shifted were moved down out of the 
mountains on one side of the salient, across the plain, and back 
up into the mountains on the opposite side. With difficult routes 
and limited railway facilities, the transfer of any large quantity 
of men, equipment, and supplies was so slow a process that an 
enemy offensive could make dangerous progress before the 
defense was effectively reinforced. At the very beginning of the 
Austro-Italian campaign, therefore, the Italians found themselves 
largely deprived of, and their enemies largely possessed of, the 
strong defensive features of the Battlefield of the Trentino. 



CHAPTER XII 

MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF 
THE TRENTINO 

The Blocking of the Passes 

On May 24, 191 5, immediately following the Italian declara- 
tion of war against Austria, Cadorna despatched Italian forces 
to seize the gateways through which Austrian armies might 
seek to debouch from the Trentine mountains into the Italian 
plain. The Italian Commander-in-Chief wisely decided upon 
a defensive campaign on this difficult terrain and concentrated 
his principal forces for an offensive on the Battlefield of the 
Isonzo. But since this latter offensive could proceed with 
safety only in case the Austrian armies threatening the Italian 
communications from the dangerous salient of the Trentino 
were securely bottled up, it was essential to push across the 
frontier and farther into the mountains, both to seize and fortify 
the northern approaches of the gateways to the plains and to 
place a greater depth of the strong defensive terrain back of 
the Italian front for its better support. 

In the southern part of the Trentino the great Giudicaria- 
Val Sugana lateral corridor was the first objective. If it could 
be taken, the greatest danger to Italy would be removed. So 
long as it remained in Austrian hands an enemy concentration 
about the military base and fortress of Trent could without 
warning launch an attack eastward into Italy along the Val 
Sugana end of the corridor, southwestward along the Giudicaria 
end, or southward along the north-south Adige trench. Trent 
could also serve as the base for an attack directed westward 
along the Noce-Avisio corridor into Italy through the Tonale 
Pass, or eastward through the Cortina d'Ampezzo gate. If, 
therefore, the southern corridor containing the most important 



524 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

fortified military base in the Trentino could be captured, a 
great advance would have been made toward freeing the north- 
ern plain from the danger of hostile invasion. 

Italian troops converged upon Trent by each of the routes 
predetermined by Nature (Fig. 120), repeating on the same ter- 
rain some of the maneuvers executed by the Napoleonic armies in 
1796 and 1797 and by the Italian armies in 1866. 1 One unit pushed 
northward along theAdige trench (PI. XI, B), supported by a vigor- 
ous attack along the high Monte Baldo ridge, which separates 
the Lake Garda trench (a parallel water route of some impor- 
tance) from the Adige and dominates military operations in both ; 
but it was stopped at the Austrian main line of defense on 
the southern side of the lateral corridor, in front of the outlying 
fortress of Rovereto. It had at least secured a firm hold on 
the approaches to the famous Chiusa di Verona, the narrow 
limestone gorge at the exit of the trench which placed the name 
of near-by Rivoli on many a page of military history, and 
which Bourcet in his rare treatise on "Principes de la Guerre des 
Montagnes" cites as an example of a natural position capable of 
being held by small forces against a whole army. Another 
force pushing northeast up the Chiese River through the 
Giudicaria valley was halted a short distance inside the Aus- 
trian frontier. The third column made good progress west- 
ward along the Val Sugana, capturing Borgo, nearly halfway 
to Trent, before it was halted. A fourth advance along the 
road zigzagging over the high shoulder of Monte Pasubio 
(Fig. 128) captured that rugged massif and the Fugazze Pass 
by which the road crosses the divide just south, but was stopped 
short of Rovereto. Thus on all sides the Italians were checked 
a short distance within the frontier by the obstinate defense of a 
formidable terrain which could be traversed only at the cost of 
terrible sacrifices. The portion of the Giudicaria- Val Sugana, or 
southernmost, corridor held by the Austrians was reduced at both 
ends and its southern wall reached but not crossed at a number of 

1 Napoleon Buonaparte: Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de France, Paris, 1823, 
Vol. 3, Chapters X and XIV; Bolton King: History of Italian Unity, London, 
1899, Vol. 2, p. 297. 



BATTLE OF ASIAGO PLATEAU 525 

points. In other words, the danger of an enemy irruption from 
the Trentino into the Italian plain had been minimized but not 
removed, while the Austrian defensive system had been little 
impaired. The southern enemy front still lay along 'the south- 
ernmost trench, and back of it were three other trenches still 
able to serve as lateral corridors of communication. 

The Noce-Avisio corridor next north was attacked at both 
ends. On the west the Italians pushed a short distance through 
the Tonale Pass, on the east they captured the gateway of 
Cortina dAmpezzo. But the Austrian hold on this corridor 
was very little reduced. A push north toward the vital Puster- 
tal corridor was quickly stopped, although the Italians were 
able to hold the crest of some of the passes giving access from 
that trench to the headwaters of the Piave and Tagliamento 
Rivers. Other minor passes were seized and strong positions 
established on the eastern and western ends of the mountain 
barriers between the three southern corridors, as on the Cividale 
and Adamello (Fig. 126) glacier-clad massifs. 

For more than three years the Italian armies were to make 
no further appreciable progress in the Trentino. An offensive 
in the following October made little impression against the 
massive stone walls of the mighty natural fortress. Some 
months later, indeed, the Italians were to be pushed back to 
the brink of the Asiago plateau overlooking the plain, and 
then to regain a part only of the lost ground. Aside from this 
nothing but local changes of no great consequence marked 
the struggle in the Trentine Alps until the final collapse of the 
Austrian army in the fall of 191 8 made possible the rapid 
Italian occupation of the whole region. 

The Battle of the Asiago Plateau 

It was in the month of May, 1916, one year after Italy's 
entrance into the war, that the Austrians made their first great 
attempt to break through to the plain and by reaching the 
sea completely to surround and annihilate the main Italian 
armies, busy pushing their offensive on the Battlefield of the 



526 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

Isonzo. Heavy reinforcements of men and enormous quantities 
of supplies and munitions were brought down the Adige valley 
and concentrated about Trent. The process of accumulation 
was necessarily slow, for through the single narrow trough of 
the Adige all the men and supplies, big guns and munitions, 
withdrawn for the purpose from the Russian and Balkan fronts, 
had to pass to their destination. New roads and railways 
were constructed and provision made to distribute water over 
the difficult terrain to the great armies as they advanced. 
The high ridges and deep valleys afforded some measure of 
concealment for these preparations, which, even if known, 
would not reveal the direction in which the Austrians, profiting 
by interior lines, would strike their chief blow. 

When the accumulated troops exceeded a third of a million 
men, and the massed batteries numbered two thousand guns 
of all calibers, the great offensive was launched on May 15 
following a terrific bombardment. The front of attack extended 
from west of the Adige trench to north of the Val Sugana cor- 
ridor, the enemy seeking to push south and southeast into the 
plain through the time-honored routes of invasion formed by 
the Adige trench and the Val Sugana corridor, by the road 
crossing the shoulder of Monte Pasubio via the Fugazze Pass, 
and by the roads crossing from northwest to southeast over 
the deeply trenched Asiago plateau and descending the Assa, 
Astico, and Posina valleys (Fig. 138 and PI. X, B). If the invading 
forces could master the Asiago plateau, then the deep gorge of the 
Brenta, carrying road and railway from the Val Sugana corridor 
through the barrier to the plain, and the strong defenses of Primo- 
lano, guarding the northern entrance into that gorge, would be 
dominated from the plateau rim and another route of invasion 
thus opened up. 

The high, rocky ridge of Coni Zugna (Fig. 122), towering 
aloft between the Adige trench on the west and the Vallarsa 
carrying the road to Fugazze Pass on the east, transformed 
by the Italians into a strong point supplied by new roads 
traversing its crest and zigzagging up its precipitous sides, 



BATTLE OF ASIAGO PLATEAU 527 

brought the Austrian advance to a sharp halt on that sector 
of the front. The natural fortress of the superb Pasubio massif 
(Fig. 128) proved an impassable barrier farther east and checked 
the attempted irruption through Fugazze Pass. In vain the 
Austrians poured a terrific fire from heavy howitzers upon the 
heights and assaulted it again and again for several weeks 
with forces vastly superior numerically to those of the de- 
fenders. The rock-ribbed mass remained an impregnable 
buttress against which the Austrian storm lashed in impotent 
fury. In the Val Sugana corridor the enemy soon found pro- 
gress arrested by strong Italian positions on the two walls. 
But across the less difficult terrain of the Asiago plateau (PI. X, B) 
the advance soon assumed highly dangeroua proportions. The 
upper bench of the plateau (Fig. 138), including the strong massif 
of Campomolon south of the Astico valley, was quickly lost 
when enemy columns filtered down the valleys dissecting it. 
The victors then pushed slowly out over the lower bench toward 
the margin of the tableland looking down upon the plain. 
For a week, for two weeks, the furious battle raged. The 
height of Pria Fora, dominating the southwestern part of the 
lower bench, and the town of Arsiero at its base, where several 
of the plateau roads unite in the Astico valley, fell to the enemy, 
as well as the town of Asiago, the center of roads on the northern 
part of the lower bench. The Austrians were within three or 
four miles of the open plain, and the third week found them driv- 
ing slowly forward. 

The situation was critical in the extreme. Not merely the 
Trentino campaign, but the mass of the Italian armies on the 
Isonzo front, and the very life of Italy, were in jeopardy. Under 
the terrific pounding of heavy artillery the Italians, fighting 
doggedly to maintain their precarious foothold on the edge 
of the mountains, were being slowly pushed back toward the 
brink of the abyss. Just behind the Italians, on the plain below, 
the Austrians could see the railway arteries upon which the 
eastern armies depended for their existence. A few more hard 
pushes and the invaders could sweep down into the plain like 



528 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

an avalanche, cut the vital arteries, take the Isonzo armies 
in the rear, and overwhelm them with what would be almost 
sure to prove irretrievable disaster. 

But the Austrian machine was beginning to lag. Its advance 
over the difficult terrain in the face of a stubborn resistance 
was destroying its momentum. Lines of supply were lengthen- 
ing, and food, water, and munitions had to be brought farther 
and farther over wild mountain trails. Nevertheless, with the 
advantage of a downhill push against the Italians, the Austrians 
were likely at any moment to precipitate the dreaded catas- 
trophe. Support from without and from within was necessary 
to restore the situation. Appeals were made to the Czar to 
advance the date of a contemplated Russian offensive in Ga- 
licia, in order to relieve the pressure on the Italian front. This 
was done, and in the first week of June Austria found her eastern 
front violently assailed. Soon some of her best divisions had 
to be recalled from the Trentino to meet the menace in Galicia. 
At the same time Cadorna had massed reserves behind the 
Italian front and was successfully appealing to his men on the 
battle line to defend to the death their last hold on the moun- 
tain flank. With splendid determination the soldiers of Italy, 
their backs to the brink, withstood one violent assault after 
another which the enemy hurled with desperation against the 
Arsiero-Asiago front. Their very proximity to the plain with 
its excellent communications gave the Italians some advantage 
in the ready supply of men and munitions to their front, despite 
the interference of enemy fire directed against roads and railways. 

By the latter part of June Cadorna began to react with a 
counteroffensive which drove the Austrians first from one 
commanding hill, then from another. It was clear that the 
Austrian drive was over. Weakened by the heavy losses in- 
evitable in an advance across such a terrain as that of the 
Trentine Alps when well defended, and by withdrawals of troops 
for service on the Galician front, the Austrian command 
abandoned the great prize almost within its reach and began 
to evacuate some of the ground gained. Falling back upon 



FIRST PI AVE BATTLE 529 

the solid defensive position provided by the higher bench of 
the Asiago plateau, the enemy brought the Italian counter- 
offensive to a halt before an almost impregnable mountain 
scarp. The Battle of the Asiago Plateau had netted the invader 
a small section of Italian territory and a final position nearer 
the plain. But, despite the strong dissatisfaction which the 
loss of ground created throughout Italy, the result was in effect 
an important Italian victory, since the Austrian offensive 
failed completely of its objective and only purchased minor 
advantages at the cost of enormous sacrifices. 

The First Battle of the Piave 

After the disaster of Caporetto in late October, 19 17, to be 
discussed later (Chapter XIV), the fleeing Italian armies were 
finally able to stand behind the natural barrier formed by the 
Piave River from the mountains to the sea and, with the aid of 
French and British divisions hurried to their assistance, to hold 
their pursuers at bay. 

Few military critics believed that the Italians would main- 
tain the Piave front, and a further retirement was predicted ; but 
the position was much stronger than it appeared. Along the sea 
its right rested on a vast expanse of marshland threaded by 
water channels on which barges camouflaged with bushes and 
bearing big guns could lie concealed in the reeds, with the power 
of shifting to new positions as rapidly as enemy fire located them 
(Fig. 129). Such a terrain, defended by heavy artillery fire, was 
practically impassable, and assured the security of the Italian 
right wing. On the left the line rested against the Alps. Unfor- 
tunately, the Italians had been forced to evacuate the whole 
sweep of the high ranges from the Isonzo to the southern tip of the 
Trentino. The rugged Carnic Alps, the second and third cor- 
ridors, and the massive barriers between them had been lost, 
together with all northeastern Italy. There remained to the 
Italians east of the Adige only a portion of the last mountain 
wall south of the last lateral trench, the merest fringe of the 
Alps, consisting of the Monti Lessini, the Pasubio massif, the 



530 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

Asiago plateau, and the Monte Grappa group. It was the 
fact that a short push from these heights into the plain would 
outflank the whole Piave front which made the latter appear 
untenable. 

Yet this last mountain wall, which had broken the great 
Austrian offensive on the Asiago plateau, was in itself a formid- 
able buttress. With rare skill the Italian engineers had con- 
structed a series of magnificent military roads by which motor 
transport could deliver men and munitions to the crest of the 
barrier with a speed which the Austrians could not equal (Fig. 
12 1). And while the Austrians on this part of the front were 
reduced to dependence upon a few main lines of communication, 
chiefly the one following the Adige trench, immediately back 
of the Italians lay the whole network of lines on the Piedmont 
plain. To capitalize this advantage further than roads alone 
would permit, scores of telef erica lines were erected to each impor- 
tant massif. Thus was assured an abundant flow of supplies and 
munitions to the Italian front, which of itself was sufficient to 
give the defenders marked advantage over their assailants. 
Add the fact that the mountains had been honeycombed with 
tunnels, galleries, invisible observation posts, concealed gun 
chambers (Fig. 139), and shelters for troops, and so transformed 
into vast fortresses upon which the heaviest enemy fire could 
produce little or no effect, and the security of the left end of the 
Piave line will be seen to have been far greater than appeared to 
casual observation. Through the heart of the Monte Grappa 
massif, upon which the Piave front rested most directly, one 
could traverse miles of subterranean galleries connecting with 
scores of openings on the northern side, from which guns of 
medium and large caliber hurled volcanic eruptions of fire and 
steel against the Austrian positions. 

A further element of strength on the Italian left was the 
curious limestone arch of the Montello (Fig. 132), rising out of 
the plain a little south of the main mountain wall, and along the 
eastern end and northern side of which (the only parts exposed to 
enemy attack) the Piave River forms a natural moat. This 



FIRST PI AVE BATTLE 531 

plateau belongs to the karst type of landscape, for its surface 
is deeply pitted with innumerable sink holes, chasms, and 
caverns, forming a terrain almost impossible to traverse in 
the face of a vigorous defense. It is the carso verde, or green 
karst, of the Italians, for vegetation covers much of its surface 
and conceals from view the countless depressions offering strong 
defensive positions. Big guns in the larger sink holes were com- 
pletely hidden in a natural camouflage of leafy branches, and 
machine-gun nests were as effectively masked by bushes and other 
smaller growth. The solid buttress of the Montello, impregnable 
itself and dominating the level plain for many miles in every 
direction from its superior height of some 1,200 feet (nearly 900 
feet above the plain), was one day to prove the salvation of the 
Piave front. 

The river itself was a barrier of no mean importance. Aside 
from its numerous channels, sometimes swollen with flood 
waters, its open expanses of sand bar flats (Fig. 130), and its 
marshes, the dikes served the purposes of the defenders (Figs. 
131 and 133). Even when not holding waters in check they 
formed strong lines of defense ready at hand and, like the railway 
dike from Dixmude to Nieuport on the plain of Flanders, were 
strongly organized with machine-gun emplacements, both near 
the crest and in tunnels cut through to the outer base. The low 
plain on either side of the river is traversed by minor streams 
and canals, which together with their containing dikes served as 
secondary defensive positions. They also divide the plain into 
compartments in one or more of which an enemy irruption could 
be contained without serious damage to the position as a whole, 
and which could be flooded without deluging other portions 
of the plain. 

The intense cultivation of the plain, however, seriously em- 
barrassed the defense. As on the Flanders plain, the difficulty 
of observing an approaching enemy and controlling artillery 
fire upon him was very great. Roads are camouflaged by close- 
set bushes and trees, fields are divided by high hedges and rows 
of trees, orchards are numerous, high corn and other crops add 



532 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

their concealment in season. Thus the defense has no adequate 
field of fire. An enemy rushing from hedge to hedge filters into 
the defensive positions ; the line becomes confused and irregular ; 
and field artillery, compelled to keep on the front itself in order to 
distinguish friend from foe, is liable to capture. The Italians 
lost whole batteries during the Piave battles on this account. 
Effective indirect artillery fire is hindered because neither the 
foe nor the results of the fire can properly be observed. Such 
are some of tne difficulties incident to the defense of an in- 
tensively cultivated plain. 

It was in the early part of November that the Italian front 
began to stabilize itself behind the Piave barrier. Cadorna 
had been retired while the retreat was in progress, and General 
Diaz made Commander-in-Chief. Under the new leadership 
vigorous efforts were undertaken to check the enemy advance. 
Dikes were opened to flood areas the Austrians would have to 
cross. Bridges were destroyed, and the passages of the multiple 
channels of the river, as well as the exposed sand bar flats (Fig. 
130), were swept with machine-gun fire from well-chosen posi- 
tions. With these defensive measures were coupled vigorous 
counterattacks which threw the pursuers into confusion and 
reduced the violence of their impact against the obstacle which 
barred their way. It soon became evident that the Italian 
high command had decided to fight something more serious 
than a rearguard delaying action along the river barrier. The 
First Battle of the Piave was in progress. 

All along the line from the sea to the mountains the Aus- 
trians tried in vain to push forward. Everywhere their efforts 
encountered an obstinate and effective resistance. Once more 
the Italian troops, who had a few weeks before fallen victim 
to the disloyal divisions which had undermined the patriotism 
of the nation behind the front and to the wiles of enemy pro- 
paganda pushed with skill and energy, were fighting with a 
spirit worthy of the best Italian traditions. Here and there 
the enemy might force a temporary crossing, but it was usually 
to be thrown back with heavy loss. At Zenson alone, where, 



FIRST PIAVE BATTLE 533 

five miles northwest of San Dona di Piave, the river makes a bend 
hard to hold, did he succeed in maintaining a bridgehead of any 
importance, and this he lost some weeks later. The Piave line 
could be broken, if at all, only after systematic preparation. 

Attempts to outflank the line of the Piave by breaking 
through the mountain wall on the north were equally fruitless. 
Attacks on the Asiago plateau and the Grappa massif failed 
of their objective, and the Austrian soldiers were halted with 
the fertile plain of the Piedmont spread green and enticing in 
full view of their hungry eyes (Fig. 132). In December the attack 
on the mountain wall was vigorously renewed. Important parts 
of the Monte Grappa massif, including the peaks of Asolone 
and Tomba, fell into enemy hands but were later recovered. 
The main mountain fortress held firm against all attacks, and 
the First Battle of the Piave slowly died out. Comparative 
calm reigned along the front for some months. 

Back of the Piave front the Italians now reconnoitered and 
partially organized additional main defensive positions, in 
order not to repeat the unpardonable neglect which had left 
the Carso front practically unsupported. The Brenta River 
would serve as an intermediate position, but the first strong 
defensive line was based on a series of hills stretching south- 
eastward into the plains — the easternmost ridge of the finger- 
like Monti Lessini from near Pasubio to Vicenza, then the 
Monti Berici with their imposing eastern face rising like a 
stone wall from the level floor of the plain, and finally the 
Euganei Hills, just to the southeast. Along the eastern base 
of the Berici and Euganei massifs, forming a natural moat 
connecting the hill buttresses into a single defensive system, 
runs the Bacchiglione River, which continues the defensive 
barrier to the lower Brenta and the coastal marshes and lagoons. 
The Adige line next to the southwest is in turn followed by the 
very strong line of Lake Garda-Mincio River- Po River. Hence- 
forth the Italian armies fighting on the Piave knew that should 
they fail to halt the enemy there, other strong defensive 
positions awaited them a few miles to the rear. 



534 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

The Second Battle of the Piave 
In the middle of June, 1918, while Ludendorff was hurline 
his masses forward in one great drive after another in the 
desperate effort to win a decision before America should assem- 
ble overwhelming forces against him, the Austrian command 
launched a violent offensive designed to bring Italy to her 
knees. Massing against the Piave front and against the Asiago- 
Grappa mountain wall large forces set free by Russia's betrayal 
of the cause of democracy, the Austrians sought at a single 
blow to breach the Piave barrier by frontal attack and to take 
its defending armies in the rear by debouching from the moun- 
tains into the plain farther west. 

The outlook for the Italians was none too reassuring. From 
the crest of that last mountain wall the enemy could survey the 
whole plain to the border of the sea (Fig. 132). On a clear day 
Venice was in view, and trains crossing the level surface 
could easily be discerned. The interlacing channels of the Piave 
and Brenta stretched far away to the southward amid green fields 
and orchards. To encourage his soldiers the Austrian general 
pointed to the promised land which lay so close below, where they 
could live in the midst of plenty after throwing the enemy from 
his last foothold on the heights. Whatever the result of the 
fighting along the Piave, victory final and complete would crown 
their irruption into the plain. 

After a brief but violent artillery preparation the whole Piave 
front was furiously assaulted by the forces of General Boroevic, 
the major efforts being directed against the weakest part of the 
front between the Montello and the northern edge of the coastal 
marshes. Undaunted by the murderous fire which swept stream 
crossings and sand flats, the avalanche of attackers swept over 
the river and submerged the first Italian positions. Near San 
Dona di Piave, on the edge of the marshes, they pushed several, 
miles beyond the barrier toward Venice. But now the Austrians 
were fighting with a river behind them, across which reserves, 
supplies, munitions, and guns moved slowly and irregularly over 
crossings deluged with Italian artillery fire. The attack lost its 



SECOND PIAVE BATTLE 535 

"punch," and a bitter struggle began for each compartment of the 
terrain, divided off by canals and dikes from behind which an 
obstinate defense was maintained. Advanced enemy units found 
themselves surrounded on three sides by solidly entrenched Ital- 
ian forces and cut off from effective support by inundated areas 
and the river in their rear. Their condition became critical when 
the Piave suddenly rose in flood on June 18, swept away the 
temporary bridges and boats used for the crossings and even 
barges loaded with men and materials of war. Isolated from all 
help, subjected to a murderous fire directed in part from guns on 
monitors in the river and on barges in the marshes, and attacked 
with great vigor by General Diaz's reserves, the Austrian units 
west of the Piave finally fled in confusion to their old positions on 
the eastern bank, leaving the river choked in places with the 
corpses of their slain and drowned comrades. The barrier had 
proved impregnable against direct frontal attack. 

Meanwhile the key position of the Montello (Fig. 132) was being 
vigorously assaulted. The river was crossed at the cost of heavy 
losses, and the conquest of the formidable terrain of the lime- 
stone arch was pushed with great energy. If this commanding 
height could be carried, the Italian positions behind the Piave 
farther south would be dominated and turned, and the whole 
front would crumble. Foot by foot the invaders forced their way 
up its eastern end, inch by inch they edged westward along the 
crest. But now they were face to face with the same appalling 
difficulties which the eastern Carso had earlier opposed to the 
advance of the Italians. From the labyrinth of sink holes, fis- 
sures, and caverns, camouflaged by the natural vegetation, a 
deadly fire from rifles, machine guns, and artillery poured upon 
them and exacted a heavy toll for every bit of ground wrested 
from the determined defenders. Slowly the offensive was worn 
down by the insuperable difficulties of a terrain admirably 
adapted to defense. Efforts to push around the ends of the arch 
and encircle it were crushed by fire accurately directed from the 
upland. Neither by direct assault nor by flank attack could the 
Montello, "the central pivot of the whole Italian line," be carried. 



536 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

Completely beaten, the Austrians abandoned the ground gained 
and fell back on their old lines east of the Piave. 

Neither the failure to breach the river barrier along its central 
portion nor the failure to conquer the Montello buttress would 
have wrecked the great Austrian offensive had the enemy forces 
farther west been able to take these strong positions in the rear 
by debouching from the mountain wall into the plain. Simul- 
taneously with the attacks just described a desperate effort was 
made to break through this latter barrier. From the Asiago pla- 
teau to the Monte Grappa massif the soldiers of Field Marshal 
von Hoetzendorf flung themselves against the last giant dike 
which held back the Teutonic flood from the low Piedmont. On 
the plateau the assaults broke down before strong positions 
defended by French and British troops. On the natural fortress 
of Monte Grappa the Italians soon halted the enemy's advance. 
The third great effort to break through the mountain wall was a 
costly failure. 

From the sea to the Trentino natural barriers ably defended 
by the Italian armies had resisted the supreme effort of the 
Austrians. That effort had cost the assailants in men more 
than 20,000 prisoners and between 150,000 and 200,000 casual- 
ties, and had gained them absolutely nothing. "They had failed 
grotesquely, and their offensive power was at an end. Their 
morale was hopelessly lowered, and domestic revolt threatened." 2 
The way was being prepared for the complete collapse of the 
whole Austrian military machine in the following October. 

The Battle of Vittorio Veneto 

On October 24 General Diaz delivered a final blow against 
the crumbling Austrian armies. The strategic plan of the battle 3 
"was to separate the Austrian mass in the Trentino from that on 
the Piave by a decisive break-through and then, by an enveloping 
action, to bring about the fall of the whole mountain front, which 

2 C. J. H. Hayes: A Brief History of the Great War, New York, 1920, p. 319. 

3 Royal Italian Army: Report by the Comando Supremo on the Battle of 
Vittorio Veneto, Rome, 1919, P- 11. 



BATTLE OF VITTORIO VENETO 537 

would cause, necessarily, the complete yielding of the enemy's 
front in the plain." This plan was to be realized by piercing the 
Austrian front where the lines on the plain met those in the 
mountains, then advancing to Vittorio in the foothills northeast 
of the Piave, whence vital communication lines in the mountains 
beXind the Austrian front could be reached. 

Both in the mountains and along the Piave front the Italians 
struck with vigor in order to give the coup de grace to their totter- 
ing enemy. In the mountains, where the terrain was so formid- 
able that even a few loyal troops could hold large numbers at 
bay for a time, the Italians encountered much resistance at first 
and suffered heavy casualties. But the defense was short-lived. 
The Piave was forced, the Grappa front collapsed next, and the 
victorious armies of General Diaz were soon sweeping forward 
along the whole line, gathering in the demoralized enemy hordes 
which threw down their arms and surrendered wholesale. "In 
ten days the Austrians lost an immense quantity of material of 
all kinds, nearly all their stores and depots, and left in Italian 
hands some 300,000 prisoners and not fewer than 5,000 guns." It 
was a rout in which the debris of the Austrian armies was more 
intent on safety than on defending any position, however strong. 

To understand the ease with which the Italian armies now 
swept over a mountainous terrain which had earlier defied their 
own best efforts as well as those of the enemy, we must recall the 
general situation of the Austrian armies in late October, 191 8. 
For three months they had been looking on with fear and con- 
sternation while the great German colossus, their only hope of 
ultimate victory, was being beaten to its knees by the legions of 
France, England, and America. Not a ray of light relieved the 
black certainty that Austria's partner in the conspiracy of 1914 
would be finally and decisively crushed. Utter hopelessness, the 
surest solvent of armies, had seized the Austrian military forces, 
from the highest officers to the men in the ranks, who could not 
now be deceived as to the actual state of affairs. Under the cir- 
cumstances no longer could the notoriously poor fighting qualities 
of the Austrians be stiffened by a leaven of German officers and 



538 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

German units. Indeed, Ludendorff was urging his little-respected 
ally to send him troops to help stem the tide of disaster on the 
main western front. For the Austrians there remained nothing 
but the certainty of ultimate defeat, and the only question was 
the time and manner of its arrival. 

Another factor of vital importance had completed the disinte- 
gration of the Austrian armies. When the amazing Treaty of 
London was published, the Austrians were able, by spreading its 
terms broadcast among their regiments of Yugoslav troops, to 
show that Italy was fighting the war only to subject vast areas 
of their lands and a large part of their population to Italian 
domination. This galvanized the Slavonic elements, strongly dis- 
affected toward their Austrian oppressor, into renewed hostility 
against the Italians and made it possible later for the Italians 
to say that the Yugoslavs had fought against them as bitterly 
as had other Austrian troops. Intelligent Italians soon realized, 
however, that Italy had only herself to thank for this condition 
of affairs, and set about the task of removing the obstacles which 
prevented two enemies of Austria from working together for the 
defeat of their common oppressor. At the Rome conference of 
April 10, 191 8, Italians and Yugoslavs came to an agreement that 
their respective territorial claims should be settled "on the basis of 
the principles of nationality and the right of peoples to decide 
their own fate." Yugoslavs and Italians now united in proclaim- 
ing this just and friendly understanding to the Slavonic troops of 
Austria and in carrying on a gigantic propaganda designed to win 
them to the Allied cause. So successful was this effort that by 
August there were observed large desertions of Yugoslav troops, 
the withdrawal of Slav units from the Austrian front line trenches 
because of their unreliability, and the disintegration of the Aus- 
trian armies to the extent that further offensive operations by 
them were practically impossible. This was, moreover, only one 
phase of a disintegration in which Poles, Czechs, and other sub- 
ject peoples of the Dual Monarchy were daily becoming more 
outspoken regarding their intention to throw off the Austrian 
yoke and more determined not to fight against the armies of the 



BATTLE OF VITTORIO VENETO 539 

Entente. As early as the fall of 1917, according to Ludendorff, 
"the Austro-Hungarian army was worn out; it had lost 1,800,000 
prisoners; it was short of recruits. Its fighting value was slight." 4 
When Diaz's blow fell Austria's "remaining armed forces were so 
honeycombed with disaffection and sedition that they were 
incapable of making even a defensive stand." 5 

A third circumstance of great moment rendered any effective 
resistance by the Austrian armies impossible. It will be remem- 
bered that in the summer of 1918 the Austro-Italian front ran 
from the Swiss frontier to the mouth of the Piave River. Then 
came a long stretch of sea, to where the next battle front began in 
Albania and stretched across southern Macedonia and northern 
Greece to reach the sea once more east of Saloniki. Thus on the 
south the dam which held back the Allied flood and prevented it 
from sweeping into the plain of Austria-Hungary behind the 
armies facing Italy was a comparatively short front across the 
narrow southern part of the Balkan Peninsula. It was, further- 
more, a dam composed largely of Bulgarian troops, the Austrians 
holding but a small part of the extreme western end of the line, in 
Albania. Now this dam was simply annihilated in the middle of 
September, 191 8, when the entire Bulgarian army was routed and 
forced to abject surrender. Immediately the Austrian armies 
faced the alternative of stretching a new front across the broad 
base of the Balkan Peninsula to check the northward rush of the 
Allied armies, or of seeing their armies on the Italian front cut off 
from their bases and forced to capitulate. In their weakened 
condition it was difficult, even with German and Bulgarian aid, 
for the Austrians to hold the shorter fronts assigned to them. To 
increase enormously that frontage at the moment when German 
and Bulgarian aid failed was hopelessly impossible. There was 
nothing possible for the Austrian forces on the Italian front save 
to look on in despair while the Allies pushed swiftly northward 

4 Erich von Ludendorff: Ludendorff's Own Story, August, 1014-November, 
1018: The Great War from the Siege of Liege to the Signing of the Armistice As 
Viewed from the Grand Headquarters of the German Army, 2 vols., New York, 
1919; reference in Vol. 2, p. 161. 

6 Hayes, A Brief History of the Great War, p. 352. 



540 BATTLEFIELD OF THE TRENTINO 

through Serbia to take them in the rear, hoping against hope that 
diplomacy might avert the inevitable disaster. The Austrians on 
the Piave-Trentino front knew they were beaten the moment the 
Bulgarian front collapsed. 

On October 6, while the Allied armies were advancing 
rapidly along the great Morava-Vardar corridor to the Danube 
plain, Austria asked the American government to intervene 
with the European Allies for an armistice. October 12 the 
Serbians re-entered their ancient capital at Nish, and on 
October 19 Allied troops stood on the Danube in northwestern 
Bulgaria. The hour of destiny was already sounding in their rear 
when on October 24 the Hapsburg armies received the Italian 
blow. Despairing of German victory, demoralized by internal 
disintegration, and doomed to defeat, whatever happened, be- 
cause of the foe advancing from behind, the Austrians staggered 
under the impact, gave ground slowly at first, then incontinently 
fled. Five days later the Austrian government was begging for a 
separate armistice and separate peace, and at the end of a week 
the readiness of its armies to capitulate was announced. 

It is thus quite evident that the failure of the Austrians to hold 
the Italians at bay along the many natural obstacles which this 
difficult terrain offered for prolonged rearguard actions is in no 
wise a measure of the defensive value of those obstacles. As in 
the case of the German retirement without adequate defense- of 
the topographic barriers in France and Belgium during the last 
few weeks of the war, so in the case of the much more rapid Aus- 
trian retirement over a much more formidable terrain, the inter- 
nal condition of the retiring forces rendered the strongest natural 
positions of no avail. In the words of Marshal Foch: "All terrains 
are passable if not defended by rifle shots, that is to say, by valiant 
and active men." 6 

6 Ferdinand Foch: Des principes de la guerre, Paris, 1017, p. 29. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO: 
THE KARST PLATEAU BATTLEFIELD 

Standing on the old international frontier southeast of Udine, 
one has before him a broad panorama of plain and mountain. 
In front stretches the smooth Piedmont sloping gently toward 
the sea. Down this slope from north to south the Isonzo River 
takes its sluggish way, choked with sand bars and wandering 
through marshy flats. Low dikes hold the waters in check lest 
they flow too far over the adjacent lowland. Beyond the river 
rises a steep mountain wall, even-crested toward the south 
(PI. X, A) but merging into the complex mass of Alpine ranges 
farther north, where lofty ridges and inaccessible peaks remind 
one of the savage terrain of the Trentino. Directly opposite, the 
towers of Gorizia are visible in a wide recess in the mountain wall 
formed by the broad Wippach valley. South of the city the even 
crest of the wall is formed by the top of the far-famed Carso 
plateau; while on the north stretches the Bainsizza plateau. 
West of the river the Alps send a long spur southward to end in 
the hills of Podgora, grim sentinels before the city gates. 

It is in this interesting region that the east- west ridges of the 
main Alpine chain shoot off a spur to the southeast called the 
Julian Alps, which rapidly broaden into the limestone hills and 
plateaus of the Dinaric Alps bordering the eastern coast of the 
Adriatic. Already the barren wastes of the desolate karst, 
that belt of arid limestone uplands which forever condemns 
to poverty the western margin of the Balkan Peninsula, begin to 
assert themselves in the Carso (Karst) and Bainsizza plateaus 
(Fig. 141). The northwest-southeast structure of the rocks, 

Note — For Chapters XIII and XIV the reader should constantly consult the 
sketch maps (Figs. 119, 140, and 142) and, in the pocket, the block diagram of the 
battlefield (PL VIII). Unless otherwise located, places named in the text can most 
readily be found on Figs. 140 or 142. 



542 BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 

folded on axes trending in this same direction, is clearly manifest 
in the course of the Carso and of the lowlands bordering it on 
either side, and in the parallel ridges and depressions of the Istrian 
peninsula (PI. VIII). Farther north the east-west structure of 
the greater Alps reveals itself in the lofty Carnic range, continued 
east of Tarvis in the Karawanken Mountains, as well as in the 
ridges and valleys which west of the Isonzo carry the Alpine high- 
lands down to the plains. Thus the Battlefield of the Isonzo lies 
at the critical junction of two distinctly different mountain sys- 
tems (Fig. 140). 

Strategic Position of the Isonzo Battlefield 

Just as the Trentine Alps form the natural protective barrier 
between the Italians and the Teutons, so the Julian Alps stand 
guard between the Italians and the Slavs. In both cases the 
Italian side of the main divide is trespassed upon by the neigh- 
boring race, which in the Isonzo region reaches far down into the 
plain. But notwithstanding this failure of ethnic boundaries to 
respect the topographic frontiers designed by Nature, it remains 
true that the Julian Alps form the logical and only effective 
protection for the Italian plain on the east, just as they form the 
similar western protection for the Slavonic lands of the Save low- 
land. In the World War it was as inevitable that the Italians 
should seek to breach this barrier and burst into the Slav prov- 
inces of Austria beyond, as it was 1 ^ that Austria should strenuously 
defend this back door to Vienna. 

From time immemorial one of the principal gateways into 
Italy has been the Pear Tree Pass, 1 a low gap in the limestone 
plateau near Adelsberg by which passage from the Save basin to 
the Piedmont plain was easily effected. A well-known route of 
early migrations, it was later crossed by a Roman road con- 
necting the Adriatic Sea with the navigable Save-Danube 
system. This "most harmful door left open by Nature to 
chastise the faults of Italy" offered the shortest and lowest transit 

1 E. C. Semple: The Barrier Boundary of the Mediterranean Basin and Its 
Northern Breaches As Factors in History, Annals Assoc. Amer. Geogrs., Vol. 5, 
191S. PP- 27-59- 






STRATEGIC POSITION 



543 




Fig. 140 — Generalized sketch map of the Battlefield of the Isonzo. See also the 
general map of the Italian theater of war (Fig. 119), the sketch map of the Isonzo 
River front (Fig. 142), and the block diagram of the Isonzo battlefield (PI. VIII). 

route from the interior to the Mediterranean basin to be found in 
the whole 1,300 mile stretch of mountains between the Bosporus 



544 BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 

and the Rhone valley, and lay between two natural thoroughfares, 
the Piedmont plain of Italy and the level expanse of the Danube 
plain. It is not strange, therefore, that barbarian hordes from 
the Danube basin poured through it repeatedly to overrun the 
level lands of sunny Italy. In. our day road and railway from 
both Trieste and Fiume on the Adriatic cross the Pear Tree Pass 
to Laibach on the Save River. Farther north another railway 
from Trieste ascends the Isonzo valley to the vicinity of Tolmino, 
then follows up a branch valley to cross by tunnel under the 
Bacha Pass (Fig. 140) into the upper Save basin, there to reach 
the vital junction point of Assling. Southward, the mountains 
are for the last time crossed by a standard-gauge railway where 
they are narrowest, in the latitude of Fiume, both road and rail- 
way connecting Fiume with the lower basin of the Save. The 
approaches to all three of these strategic gateways lie within the 
broader limits of the Battlefield of the Isonzo and were important 
objectives of the Italian eastern campaign. Beyond them lay the 
Austrian military bases of Klagenfurt and Laibach, as well as 
Agram some seventy-five miles southeast of Laibach on the Save 
River, the capture of which would enormously cripple Austria's 
further military efforts. 

Within the limits of the battlefield were areas of predominant 
Italian population constituting, like the Trentino, an "unre- 
deemed province" of Italy. "Trent and Trieste" was a battle cry 
which aroused the patriotic ardor of the Italian masses and, 
independently of purely military considerations, created a 
political necessity for an advance into the Isonzo region. As in 
the case of the Trentino, however, Italy demanded far more 
than racial, economic, geographic, or historical grounds could 
justify. The real basis of her claim was strategic. If she could 
have assigned to her the three strong bridgeheads on the 
eastern coast of the Adriatic (in Albania, Dalmatia, and the 
Julian Alps) by which according to the Treaty of London her 
entrance into the war on the side of the Entente was to be 
recompensed, her military supremacy in the western Balkans 
would be assured. 



STRATEGIC POSITION 



545 



Most valuable among these bridgeheads was the northern 
one, which would carry the Italian frontier clear across the 
Julian Alps barrier to the heights dominating the Laibach basin 
and place the Adelsberg gateway well within Italian territory. 
Demands supplementary to the Treaty of London, but pushed 
with great insistence at the Peace Conference, were designed to 
place the Bacha Pass tunnel south of Assling and the vital port of 




Fig. 141 — The barren upland of the Carso in the vicinity of Oppachiasella. 
(Italian official photograph.) 



Fiume within Italy's boundaries. Thus all three strategic gate- 
ways would pass wholly under Italian control and all north- 
western Yugoslavia lie open to easy invasion. Possession of 
Fiume in particular would prove of the highest strategic value to 
Italy, because the geographic character of the eastern coast of the 
Adriatic makes of this port the only practicable economic outlet 
for Yugoslavia, thus assuring to the power controlling the port a 
potential control of the economic life of the Yugoslav people. 
As in the case of the Trentino, the racial argument was empha- 
sized to stimulate the support of the Italian people and to affect 
world opinion; but the annexing to Italy of half a million Slavs 
against their violent protest, which would be necessary in order 



546 BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 

to save the few thousand Italians constituting at Fiume a tiny- 
Latin island in the midst of a Slavonic sea, could be justified, if 
at all, only on military grounds. 

That the real objective of Italian policy was to secure ascend- 
ancy in the Balkans by controlling strategic bridgeheads of the 
highest possible importance was clearly avowed in the defense of 
the Orlando-Sonnino government published by the Giornale 
d' 'Italia, generally regarded as Baron Sonnino's organ, after 
the fall of that government from power. After rebuking certain 
influential Italian elements for refusing to admit "the strategic, 
political, and economic reasons for which Italy must set foot in 
Dalmatia, thereby constituting with Istria and Albania the triple 
bridgehead for expansion in the Danubian and Balkan system, 
which expansion is feared by others and is the true motive of the 
resistance offered to our Adriatic claims," the defense enumerates 
the following objects which Orlando and Sonnino had in view in 
consenting to discuss at Paris the so-called "Tardieu project" for 
a free state of Fiume: 

(i) Annexing to Italy the whole of Istria, even including that part 
of eastern Istria which Wilson denies us. 

(2) Giving to the small free state of Fiume such a statute as would 
have effectively placed it for fifteen years under our government through 
the long arm of a local government faithful to us, pending its eventual 
annexation to Italy. 

(3) Saving in Dalmatia the harmonious system of Zara-Sebenico-the 
islands, while leaving to Yugoslavia a part of the interior; but thus 
establishing an adequate political, economic, and military bridgehead, 
together with a substantial guarantee of the italianita of Dalmatia and 
full security against any future contingency. 

(4) Having Albania under mandate and thus insuring through its 
integrity and national independence our influence, our expansion, and 
our strategic safety. 2 

It is clear that with such far-reaching strategic plans in view 
the Italian high command must have concentrated its chief offen- 
sive energies on the eastern front, even had not the nature of the 
Trentine terrain destined it for a merely defensive role. East 
and southeast of the Isonzo River lay the keys to the most im- 

2 Giornale a" Italia, July 4, 1919. 



STRATEGIC POSITION 



547 




Fig. 142 — Map of the Isonzo front, showing the Carso and Bainsizza plateaus and 
the mountain peaks which formed the principal Austrian strongholds. Scale, 6.7 
miles to the inch. 



548 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 




SURFACE FEATURES 549 

portant bridgehead of the three and to the only trade route pos- 
session of which would at a single stroke render practically impos- 
sible any effective resistance to possible future Italian expansion 
in the Balkans. The Battlefield of the Isonzowas certain, there- 
fore, to witness the main efforts of the Italian armies, until the 
disaster of Caporetto should throw them back on the Piave. 

The only two ports by which Austria-Hungary and Germany 
could communicate effectively with the Austrian fleet in the 
Adriatic were Trieste and Fiume. The railways leading to these 
ports and to the great Austrian naval base at Pola (Fig. 119) 
could be cut by a moderate eastward advance, the ports them- 
selves isolated and captured, and the Central Powers cut off from 
all communication with their Adriatic fleet save by the round- 
about and difficult route via narrow-guage railway across the 
barren karst highlands to several minor ports farther south. Thus 
the position of the Battlefield of the Isonzo made it an attractive 
field of operations designed in part to assure full Allied control 
of the Adriatic Sea. 

Surface Features of the Isonzo Battlefield 

The battlefield to which the valley of the Isonzo is the thresh- 
old, and which we have chosen to designate by the name of that 
river, is characterized by three striking topographic elements 
which deserve some further notice (Fig. 142). These are the Al- 
pine ridges at the north,the karst plateaus at the south, and the 
Isonzo River and its tributaries draining parts of both these 
regions. A full description of even these three elements of the 
terrain would carry us further than the fate of the operations on 
this eastern front would seem to warrant; for despite valiant 
endeavors the Italians failed to progress appreciably beyond the 
margin of the field, and their moderate gains were completely 
wiped out by the great Teutonic victory of Caporetto. 

THE ALPINE RIDGES 

The northern ridges belonging to the main Alpine system re- 
semble the Alps of the Trentino in more respects than one (Fig. 



550 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 




THE ALPINE RIDGES 551 

143 and PI. VIII). They are eroded from the same complexly 
folded and broken system of rocks of varied types and show the 
same ragged crests and peaks separated by the same deep, glacier- 
scoured valleys. It is not necessary to repeat in detail the effects 
of such a terrain upon methods of warfare, already described at 
some length in connection with the Battlefield of the Trentino. 
It will be sufficient to modify the account there given by noting 
the fact that no peak in the Isonzo region rises sufficiently high to 
have glaciers still persisting on its flanks, and so to eliminate from 
our present consideration such spectacular features of Alpine war- 
fare as depend upon the presence of permanent ice fields. 

As in the Trentine mountains, so in those of the northern 
Isonzo region, movement is limited to a few important passes. 
Among these the Pontebba, or Pontafel, Pass formerly crossed 
by a Roman road, now carries a railway through the upper 
Tagliamento valley and across a low col at Tarvis into the 
Drave valley by a transverse gorge cut clear through the Carnic- 
Karawanken ridge; while the difficult Predil Pass at the head of 
the Isonzo is crossed by a highway which ascends that valley to 
reach the Drave by the same strategic gateway at Tarvis. The 
only other important crossing of the northernmost ridges is the 
tunnel already referred to through which the railway from Trieste 
crosses into the Save valley south of Assling. 

A few of the minor passes across the more southerly members 
of the Alpine ridges have considerable strategic importance. It 
will be observed that the upper Isonzo River cuts a zigzag trench 
through the east-west ridges, the general course of the trench 
being southward from the Predil Pass (Fig. 140). Across the high 
Monte Matajur-Monte Cucco ridge, steepest on the northeast 
toward the Tolmino-Caporetto sector of the Isonzo trench and 
sloping more gently southwestward to the plain around Cividale 
and Udine, are cut a series of low gaps by which troops may easily 
pass from the plain into the trench or debouch from the trench 
into the plain. The lowest of these is the wild gorge of the 
Natisone (Fig. 142) which from the floor of the trench just west of 
Caporetto (Karfreit) turns abruptly southward and cuts through 



552 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 



the mountains to the plain. A good highway runs from Caporetto 
along the narrow floor of the Natisone gorge to Cividale. Two 
or three miles southeast of Caporetto a branch of the Natisone 
heads on a low col (Fig. 143) and flows southwest to join the main 
river before Cividale is reached. By this col and branch valley a 
second highway crosses the high Matajur-Cucco ridge to connect 




Fig. 145— Italian front across the desolate surface of the karst plateau, 
official photograph.) 



(Italian 



Caporetto in the Isonzo trench with Cividale on the Piedmont 
plain. For convenience we will call these two strategic gateways 
the Caporetto passes. When it is remembered that, while the 
main Italian armies were facing eastward along the lower Isonzo 
from Tolmino to the sea, the chief protection of their flank and 
rear in this region was formed by the Matajur-Cucco ridge, the 
vital importance of the Caporetto passes can easily be imagined. 
The old Austro-Italian frontier across the Battlefield of the 
Isonzo traversed the Pontebba Pass and ran close to the Predil 
Pass on the northernmost ridges, then followed southward 



THE ALPINE RIDGES 



553 



parallel to and west of the Isonzo trench to reach the Matajur- 
Cucco ridge, along the crest of which it pursued an easterly 
course to a point near Tolmino, whence it ran southwestward to 
the open plain along a minor stream valley just west of the Isonzo. 
On the Matajur-Cucco ridge the frontier for a distance of 15 miles 
or more overlooked the plain at close range (Fig. 144). As in the 




Fig. 146 — Sink hole in the limestone of the barren karst country, 
photograph.) 



(Italian official 



Trentino, Austria had kept for herself the great mass of the Alpine 
barrier, and all along the frontier from the sea nearly to the Predil 
Pass the Italian plain lay open to hostile invasion. It was a fron- 
tier imposing fatal strategic disadvantages on Italy, and one 
which Italian statesmen could not be expected to tolerate when 
once the World War opened the way to a possible revision. The 
"American line" which the Peace Conference offered to Italy 
but which Italy refused to accept, carried her frontier eastward 
to the main crest of the Julian Alps far into Slavonic territory, 
blocked the gateways of possible invasion by giving her the 



554 BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 

southern half of the tunnel south of Assling, the Birnbaum pla- 
teau and other highlands dominating the Adelsberg region and 
the Pear Tree Pass, and the great Monte Maggiore ridge com- 
manding the exits from the Fiume basin, thus assuring reasonable 
strategic security to Italy, something which the old frontier had 
denied. 

THE KARST PLATEAUS 

Southward from the latitude of the Bainsizza plateau the 
northwest-southeast system of ridges and plateaus prevails 
(PL VIII). Irregular sandstone hills, valleys eroded on shales 
and other weaker formations, and sharp ridges where the folded 
rocks are tilted up on edge vary the landscape. But it is the flat- 
topped limestone plateaus which give the dominant character to 
the country (Fig. 145). Of these the great Carso plateau, lying 
between the broad Wippach valley on the northeast and the nar- 
row corridor leading along the sea to Trieste on the southwest, 
projects westward as a formidable bastion dominating the plain 
in all directions. In a great arc around its western end sweeps the 
natural moat of the Isonzo River and its marshes (Fig. 142). 

It is not easy adequately to conceive the stupendous difficul- 
ties of the Carso terrain. The plateau is in fact a flat-topped 
mountain from four to six miles broad (PI. X, A). Its sides are 
precipitous, and, as it rises from three or four hundred to more 
than a thousand feet above the surrounding lowlands, it consti- 
tutes a gigantic rock-walled fortress whose guns control with ease 
the city of Gorizia, the crossings of the Isonzo moat, and the roads 
and railways running to Trieste through the Wippach valley and 
the coastal corridor. Its lower slopes are partly wooded, but 
higher up the steep rimming scarp is bare and rocky. Merely to 
scale the walls is therefore a military feat of no small magnitude. 

The upland surface is a dry, thirsty, wind-swept desert (Fig. 
147). The rock is limestone, and its ready solution permits the 
development of underground channels by which all moisture 
quickly escapes to great depths. Scanty vegetation relieves but 
slightly the barren aspect of this desolate land without rivers, 
brooks, or springs. It is the typical rocky desert of the karst 



THE KARST PLATEAUS 



555 



type, for which its name, Carso, is the Italian equivalent. Like 
other karst lands the surface is excessively irregular, pitted with 
sink holes without number and undermined by subterranean 
caverns. The sink holes, or "dolinen," are funnel-shaped depres- 
sions from fifty to many hundred feet in diameter and fifty, a 
hundred, or even several hundred feet in depth (Fig. 146). 




Fig. 147 — Defensive position on western margin of the Carso north of Monfal- 
cone. The barren aspect of the limestone country is apparent, and stone breast- 
works and shelters replace trenches and underground dugouts. (Italian official 
photograph.) 



They may end in passageways connecting with the vast labyrinth 
of underground caves and galleries. Over the surface rise many 
low hills and an occasional mass of more imposing dimensions, 
like the Monte San Michele (PI. X, A). Nature thus provided 
ready to hand innumerable concealed sites for heavy artillery, 
machine-gun emplacements, observation stations, and secure 
underground retreats for vast numbers of troops. And what 
Nature offered, the Austrians had accepted and improved by long 
years of elaborate fortification. Trenches had been cut in the 
solid rock, elaborate systems of galleries and tunnels had been 
excavated, gun emplacements had been prepared in pits quarried 
for the purpose, and the whole system connected by covered 



556 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 




E.S 



£-1 GJ 



fe £ 



THE KARST PLATEAUS 557 

communication trenches and supplied by water pumped up to 
the thirsty surface and distributed by pipe lines. 

The western end of the plateau is cut off from the main Carso 
by a deep trench, plainly visible on the map, called the Vallone 
(Fig. 142). Thus even should the Italians cross the Isonzo bar- 
rier, scale the rocky walls of the plateau and conquer Monte San 
Michele and the rest of the western upland (sometimes called the 
Doberdo plateau), their further progress would be disputed at 
the deep, wide trench just described. 

South of the formidable Carso bastion is the coastal corridor 
leading to Trieste. So narrow is the depression that it could 
hardly be called a "curtain" in the terminology of fortifications, 
although it can be effectively swept by flanking fire from the bas- 
tion walls. These are broken and terraced on the southwestern 
side, and an outlying strip carries the heights of Hermada, which 
rise even higher than the adjacent surface of the main plateau and 
effectively block the route to Trieste (Fig. 148). To the north the 
broad Wippach valley constitutes a natural curtain, upon the 
floor of which good defensive positions are to be found in a maze 
of low hills and on detached remnants of the plateau of greater 
elevation. It is within the shelter of this re-entrant that the city 
of Gorizia nestles under the protection of the bastion walls. 

North of the Wippach curtain is the massive Bainsizza bas- 
tion, repeating in essentials the features of the Carso bastion. 
Again we have the high limestone plateau, with a labyrinth of 
hills and sink holes rendering its arid surface almost impassable, 
2nd steep rimming walls making it almost inaccessible. Again 
there are bordering valley lowlands on either side; again the 
western end of the plateau is cut off from its eastward continua- 
tion (the Ternovane plateau) by a deep, dry valley, this time 
known as the Chiapovano valley; and again the Isonzo River 
forms a natural moat around the projecting apex of the bastion. 
And just as the outlying highland strip carrying the Hermada 
strengthens the southwestern wall of the Carso bastion, so the 
southwestern wall of the Bainsizza bastion is reinforced by the 
detached ridge carrying Monte Santo, San Gabriele, and San 



558 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 







ISONZO VALLEY 



559 



Daniele (Fig. 142). A new feature appears in the strong outlying 
defenses to the west formed by the fading spurs of the Alps, which 
terminate southward in Monte Sabotino and the lower hills of 
Podgora. 

THE ISONZO VALLEY 

The Isonzo River moat, which defends the approaches to both 
bastions, the Wippach curtain, and the Trieste corridor, is in its 
northern part a deep, steep-walled glacial trough, with a fairly 
open floor (Fig. 149), much of the way from its head to Tolmino. 
Here the isolated hills of Santa Lucia and other heights rising 
from the floor defend the important Tolmino basin, where streams 
from three directions join the Isonzo and where the Predil Pass, 
Assling, and Idria mining region routes meet on their way to 
Gorizia. From Tolmino southward the valley is a wild and pic- 
turesque gorge over 2,000 feet deep, with scarcely room in its 
narrow bottom for the two roads and railway which traverse it. 
It is this portion of its course which forms the deep moat con- 
touring the western end of the Bainsizza bastion. At Gorizia 
the river passes from the mountains to the plain and immediately 
takes on the braided pattern so characteristic of the other rivers 
of the Piedmont. Across the broad entrance to the Wippach 
curtain it stretches its multiple, shifting channels and sand bars, 
a barrier not to be despised by any army. On reaching the Carso 
bastion it swings southwest, then south, and finally southeast 
around its western end, sometimes close to the limestone wall as 
in the vicinity of Gradisca (Fig. 150); sometimes farther out, as 
in its course over its own marshy delta southwest of Monfalcone. 

Like the rivers on the Flanders plain the course of the Isonzo 
across the Piedmont has to be diked to prevent flooding broad 
areas of the adjacent country. Especially when melting snows or 
heavy rains in the mountains add their unusual volume to the 
stream does the protection become imperative. Then indeed 
the full channel with its muddy flood becomes a military obsta- 
cle most difficult to traverse under fire from the bastion walls. 
Should it fail, however, to check a persevering enemy, the defense 
may be strengthened, as in the case of the Yser, by breaking the 



560 BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 

dikes and flooding the bordering lowland. During one of the 
Italian attacks on the Carso, where the natural moat lies close at 
its base, the Austrians availed themselves of this method of 
defense, and the river flood, then unusually high, deluged the 
surrounding lands to a depth of six feet in places. 

THE BORA 

Even the winds of this forbidding region oppose themselves to 
an army attacking from the west. The bora, a violent wind which 
renders so many channels and harbors along the eastern coast of 
the Adriatic unsafe, pours like a furious, invisible flood over the 
margins of the karst plateaus, sweeping clouds of dust or storms 
of rain, sleet, or snow into the faces of all who may try to scale 
the slopes. Hodgkin relates that, when the Romans in the 
Wippach valley tried to stem the tide of invasion under Theodo- 
sius the Great pouring through the Pear Tree Pass in 394 A.D., 
they were thrown into confusion by the clouds of dust which, 
sweeping down upon them from the heights, destroyed their 
aim, and by the fact that the violent bora turned their darts back 
upon themselves. It was the bora which "decided the battle of 
the Frigidus near fifteen centuries ago and gave the whole Roman 
world to the family of Theodosius and thedominion of theCatholic 
faith." 3 Iron railings are now fastened to the rocks at some of the 
karst passes to prevent travelers from being blown over the cliffs 
by a wind against which neither man nor beast can stand unaided. 

Such are the natural barriers which blocked the eastward 
advance of the Italian armies. The steep-walled bastions 
of the Carso and Bainsizza plateaus, defended by the Isonzo 
moat, were rightly regarded by the Austrians as almost impreg- 
nable. An advance to Trieste along the coastal corridor was 
impossible so long as the Austrians held the Carso bastion and the 
high hills of Hermada. To reach that port by way of the Wip- 
pach curtain was impossible until both the Carso and Bainsizza 
bastions completely dominating it were cleared of enemy forces. 

3 Thomas Hodgkin: Italy and Her Invaders, 8 vols., Oxford, 1880-1899; refer- 
ence in Vol. I, pp. S7S-S77- 



MILITARY VALUE OF BARRIERS 561 

Farther north an advance would merely carry one ever deeper into 
the maze of difficult Alpine ridges. There was no alternative to 
a frontal attack on the two bastions and their protecting moat. 

MILITARY VALUE OF THE NATURAL BARRIERS 

A better appreciation of the formidable character of the 
natural obstacles which confronted Italy upon her entrance into 




fc&r>:i 



Fig. 150 — The Isonzo River at the base of the Carso plateau near Gradisca. The 
bridge crossing the river has been partially destroyed to prevent easy passage of the 
barrier. (Italian official photograph.) 

the war would have served to mollify the criticisms directed 
against her slow progress across the Battlefield of the Isonzo. 
The fact that she was confronted by troops of poor fighting 
quality, troops which were regularly beaten by Serbs, Rumanians, 
or Russians except when stiffened by German units and directed 
by German officers, was more than offset by the nature of the 
terrain. Let the reader imagine himself west of the Isonzo, 
attempting the task of the Italian army. Gorizia, an important 



562 BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 

field base and a prize of considerable political importance, is one 
of the first objectives. There it lies in full view just beyond the 
river, nestling securely in the re-entrant angle of the Wippach 
curtain. You approach the treacherous Isonzo and find the 
bridges wholly or partially destroyed. The guns of Monte 
Sabotino and Podgora on the Alpine spurs fire upon you from 
the north; the guns of Monte Santo, San Gabriele, and San 
Daniele on the outer wall of the Bainsizza bastion threaten you 
from the northeast ; the guns of Monte San Michele on the crest of 
the Carso bastion belch steel upon you from the south. Boats and 
pontoon bridges are destroyed in this hurricane of cross fire, and 
it would almost appear that you cannot cross the river moat until 
you have captured the protecting bastions, and cannot reach the 
bastions until you have crossed the protecting moat. At last 
you can appreciate the full significance of one phrase in the 
memorandum said to have been issued to the Austrian soldiers at 
the beginning of the struggle on the Isonzo front: "We have but 
to retain possession of a terrain fortified by Nature." 



CHAPTER XIV 

MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF 
THE ISONZO 

The First Battle of the Isonzo 
War was declared by Italy on the evening of May 23, 1915. 
Cadorna struck without a moment's delay, and by morning 
his armies were sweeping across the level plain toward the 
Isonzo barrier. The soldiers of Italy were now to attempt the 
same maneuvers which Napoleon's legions had repeatedly per- 
formed upon this identical terrain in the years 1797 to 1809. 
Like Napoleon, Cadorna directed one column against the Pon- 
tebba Pass to close that gateway to the plain and also to cut off 
Austrian forces which might attempt to descend the Isonzo via 
the Tarvis gateway and Predil Pass. Like Napoleon, he directed 
his main offensive against the Isonzo barrier and the karst 
plateaus beyond, in order to seize the gateways through the 
mountain wall and to debouch into the Austrian lands beyond. 
If successful, he might, like Napoleon, re-unite his columns after 
their passage through the gateways, and prepare for an advance 
on Vienna. 

But the power of the modern defensive has restored to moun- 
tain ranges all of that importance as military barriers which they 
possessed in the early days of warfare and which they seemed in 
some measure to lose when the genius of Napoleon, adopting 
novel methods of campaigning which his slow-witted opponents 
could neither understand nor imitate, forced one mountain pass 
after another with disconcerting ease. Where Napoleon found 
a mere stage upon which to execute his maneuvers, Cadorna 
discovered an impregnable fortress belching death from myriad 
unseen caverns, camouflaged sink holes, and concealed tunnel 
exits. Long-range heavy artillery fire, the deadly machine gun, 



564 BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 

and barbed-wire entanglements had turned rivers into almost 
impassable moats and long hill slopes into fatal glacis. 

The Isonzo River was the first serious barrier encountered by 
the advancing Italians. Along its lower course a crossing was 
effected by means of pontoon bridges and boats under heavy 
fire and with great difficulty. It is related that the advancing 
troops, inspired by high patriotic fervor and the lofty ambition 
to free their oppressed brethren of Gorizia and Trieste, flung 
themselves into the flood to gain the farther bank. Gradisca and 
Monfalcone at the base of the Carso were captured, but the 
Italian right wing hurled itself in vain against the walls of that 
great bastion (PI. X, A). In front of the Wippach curtain the 
river moat, swept by fire from the bastion walls, proved too diffi- 
cult an obstacle to negotiate, and the hills of Podgora and Monte 
Sabotino, outworks of the Bainsizza bastion, resisted capture. 
Farther north the Isonzo moat before the main Bainsizza bastion 
was reached, but its passage was too heavy a task for the forces 
engaged. Still farther northward, in the Caporetto sector (Fig. 
143), heavy fighting closed the passages from the trench into 
the plain, carried the Italians across the river and up the slopes 
of the ridge beyond, where the bare rock precipices of Monte 
Nero dominated the whole valley from Tolmino past Caporetto 
to Plezzo (Flitsch). The bridgehead gained here on the north- 
east side of the great Isonzo trench was of prime importance, for 
it threw the enemy back from the dangerous Caporetto passes 
opening through the Matajur-Cucco ridge southwest of the river. 
Should the enemy ever debouch through those passes, the 
remaining armies along the Isonzo all the way to the sea would be 
threatened from the rear and constrained to a precipitate retreat. 

All summer long the Italian armies struggled in vain to breach 
the formidable barriers which opposed them. Their most 
violent assaults made little impression on the frowning walls of 
the Carso and Bainsizza bastions, and much of the Isonzo moat 
still lay between them and the enemy. A heroic attack on the 
Carso in the latter part of July netted small gains; and, when the 
fires of the battle burst forth again in October and the whole 



SECOND ISONZO BATTLE 565 

Isonzo front was assaulted in order to relieve pressure upon the 
Serbian armies, the massive natural fortress remained unshaken. 
The long and bitter First Battle of the Isonzo had done little 
more than secure bridgeheads east of the Isonzo below Gradisca 
and above Tolmino, with a smaller foothold about Plava at the 
western apex of the Bainsizza bastion. 

The Second Battle of the Isonzo 

The summer's experience had demonstrated that the fortified 
natural bastions on the Isonzo front could be carried only by a 
slow siege warfare which should prepare the way for a grand 
assault many months later. To this laborious work the Italian 
armies now addressed themselves. Day after day, week after 
week, they burrowed up the barren slopes of the Carso, driving 
deep trenches in the solid rock farther and farther toward the 
crest, boring great tunnels hundreds of yards in length which 
should ultimately open within a few feet of the Austrian main 
defenses. Spade and entrenching tool were useless here, and the 
miner's pick, sledge-hammer, drill, and dynamite were called into 
service. Sandbags, brought up from the plain below, were built 
into breastworks which afforded the toilers some protection from 
the deadly flying splinters of rock dislodged by the enemy's 
constant artillery bombardment. Farther north the same 
methodical preparations were being carried out against enemy 
strongholds on the advanced spurs of the Alps west of the Bain- 
sizza bastion. Rock trenches were being driven toward the works 
crowning the hills north of Podgora while the almost inaccessible 
positions on Monte Sabotino were secretly being reached by a 
tunnel thousands of feet in length. Week after week, month 
after month, the laborious task was pursued. What surface 
topography made impossible must be achieved by an advance 
underground. 

At last, on August 4, 1916, more than a year after the Italian 
armies had first flung themselves at the Isonzo barriers, the 
second great blow against the natural fortifications was struck. 
After a terrific bombardment "the Italian infantry, believing 



566 BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 

that the hour of victory had at last arrived, charged with un- 
exampled impetuosity," while a fleet held the coastal corridor 
under fire to prevent reinforcements coming from Trieste. The 
advantages gained by the long siege operations were now appar- 
ent. Leaping from their protected advanced positions the as- 
saulting forces overwhelmed the astonished enemy before he 
could take effective countermeasures. The walls of the Carso 
bastion were scaled, the cruel guns of Monte San Michele silenced, 
the western end of the Carso forming the Doberdo plateau over- 
run, and even the deep trench of the Vallone crossed after a 
bitter struggle. Here, however, the difficulties opposed by 
Nature wore down the offensive so effectually that further 
progress on the main Carso was soon reduced to minor gains 
purchased at a heartbreaking price. 

Northwest of Gorizia the brilliant assault was equally success- 
ful. The hills of Podgora and the supposedly impregnable 
stronghold of Monte Sabotino were carried by storm. Thus the 
last of the natural outworks of the Bainsizza bastion were in 
Italian hands. With the enemy pushed farther back toward the 
east on both protecting bastions, the Wippach curtain was less 
secure, and Italian troops crossed the river, captured Gorizia, 
and established themselves on the hills east of the city. But 
here again the offensive was soon halted. Further advance into 
the curtain was impossible so long as the enemy still poured a 
murderous fire into it from the bastion walls on both sides, just 
as the advance on Trieste by the coastal corridor must await 
the clearing of the Carso and the outlying hills of the Hermada. 
In September, in October, and again in November, the bloody 
struggle was continued with admirable vigor and determination, 
and some ground was added to that previously gained. But the 
formidable obstacles mentioned above were beyond the power 
of the now exhausted Italian armies to conquer. 

The Second Battle of the Isonzo was for the Italians only a 
partial success, since it failed to break through the system of 
natural barriers on which the Austrian defense was based. It 
was, nevertheless, a magnificent exploit, the full significance of 



THIRD AND FOURTH ISONZO BATTLES 567 

which can only be appreciated by those who know what a maze 
of military difficulties is ever associated with the barren lime- 
stone plateaus of the savage karst. 

The Third Battle of the Isonzo 

In the middle of May, 1917, Cadorna began another desperate 
effort to smash through the rock wall barriers which had so long 
defied the assaults of the Italian armies. The first rampart of the 
Bainsizza bastion carrying the peaks of Kuk, Monte Santo, San 
Gabriele, and San Daniele, the first sweeping some miles of the 
Isonzo trench with fire, the latter two dominating the Wippach 
curtain with their big guns, was one of the chief objectives. At 
the same time the frowning mass of the Hermada hills, blocking 
the coastal corridor route to Trieste, was to be assaulted and the 
enemy lines on the adjacent Carso to be pushed back toward the 
southeast. From the 12th to the 14th the whole front was 
deluged with heavy artillery fire, and on the latter date the 
infantry attacks were launched. 

The first success was scored in the north, where the important 
height of Kuk was quickly carried by troops scaling the eastern 
wall of the Isonzo moat. When the Austrians were fully engaged 
with the task of meeting the menace to this part of their front, 
Cadorna struck in the south. Here the Austrian first lines were 
overrun and several villages captured. But against the Hermada 
bulwark (Fig. 148) the Italians beat in vain, and the force of 
their blow expended itself in destroying the advanced defenses 
organized on an almost impregnable terrain, and in checking 
violent Austrian counterattacks launched from strong positions. 
In the north little progress could be made from the peak on the 
rampart seized at Kuk. For a third time the natural barriers 
of the Isonzo had resisted the most violent assaults. 

The Fourth Battle of the Isonzo 

While pushing his operations at various points of the line 
Cadorna was organizing a new thrust on a scale which entitles it to 



568 BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 

rank as a separate great battle. Indeed, this action has been 
called the "Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo" by the Austrians and 
Germans, who separate the different phases of the offensives here 
grouped as three main battles. A crushing weight of Italian, 
French, and British artillery was massed in a gigantic attempt 
to smash the enemy's resistance, while squadrons of bombing 
airplanes carried consternation into the Austrians' back areas 
and disorganized their communications in the hope of overcoming 
the great natural advantages which the defense enjoyed on this 
difficult terrain. 

On August 19 the attacking forces, crossing the Isonzo by a 
dozen or more temporary bridges built under fire, swarmed up 
the steep walls of the first rampart of the Bainsizza plateau and 
farther south hurled themselves once more against the natural 
fortress of the Hermada. For nearly a week a fierce struggle 
raged on the Bainsizza rampart before Monte Santo passed 
wholly into Italian hands. Along the wall to the southeast, and 
separated from Monte Santo by a deep notch cut by a transverse 
stream, San Gabriele resisted much longer, changing hands 
repeatedly before the attackers could call it securely their own. 
The southeastern end of the rampart still remained to be con- 
quered. On the main plateau to the north the Italians pushed 
slowly forward to the deep Chiapovano trench, paying heavily 
for every foot of advance. Against the Hermada the offensive 
once more broke in vain. 

At the cost of repeated offensives entailing heavy losses, the 
formidable terrain of the Isonzo battlefield was being conquered 
bit by bit. There still remained a long and difficult succession of 
strong defensive positions to be taken, but sufficient advance had 
been made to cause the Austrian command great anxiety and to 
lead it to demand that stiffening of the mediocre Austrian troops 
by German units which had already so often proved necessary. 
In the words of Ludendorff, "The Austro-Hungarian armies had 
indeed held their ground, but their losses in the Carso mountains 
had been so heavy and they were so shaken that the responsible 
military and political authorities of the Dual Monarchy were 



BATTLE OF CAPORETTO 569 

convinced that they would not be able to stand a continuation of 
the battle and a twelfth attack on the Isonzo. The Austrian 
army on the Italian front needed stiffening by German troops." 1 

The Battle of Caporetto 

The German high command now planned with admirable skill 
a stroke designed to shatter the whole eastern Italian front and 
restore the morale of the Austrian armies. A repetition of the 
attempt to debouch from the Trentino and take the mass of the 
Italian armies in the rear was considered, but was rejected on the 
ground that the task was beyond the power of the forces Germany 
could spare from other fronts so long as the pressure on those 
fronts was perilously heavy. The last mountain wall defending 
the plain had already proved a barrier which could be overcome 
only with greatly superior forces and at a heavy cost. There was, 
however, another terrain which offered promise of a strategic 
success only second in magnitude to an irruption from the 
Trentino. On the upper Isonzo the Italian front turned from 
its south-to-north course and from near Tolmino ran northwest- 
ward along the Monte Nero ridge (Fig. 143) past Plezzo to gain 
the main ridge of the Carnic Alps. If this sector of the front 
could be broken between Tolmino and Plezzo, the Isonzo crossed 
east and west of Caporetto, and the passes through the Matajur- 
Cucco ridge on the opposite side of the valley captured, the 
assaulting forces could "roll like an avalanche" down the last 
slope of the Alps to the plain at Cividale, thus outflanking the 
whole Isonzo front. 

It is true the terrain presented by the Isonzo moat and the 
mountain rampart beyond was most forbidding. In Luden- 
dorff's opinion "the difficulties of the ground seemed almost in- 
surmountable, and the communications on the Austrian side 
were as bad as could be imagined." Mountain artillery and pack 
transport had to be provided and the German artillerymen given 

1 Erich von Ludendorff: Ludendorff's Own Story, August, 1014-November, 1018: 
the Great War from the Siege of Liege to the Signing of the Armistice As Viewed from 
the Grand Headquarters of the German Army, 2 vols.. New York, 1910; reference 
in Vol. 2, p. 94. 



570 BATTLEFIELD OF THE ISONZO 

a long course of special training in shooting in mountainous dis- 
tricts. Alpine troops experienced in mountain warfare had to 
be chosen, and specially equipped and trained. For the con- 
centration on the front of attack two mountain roads were 
available, so narrow in places that movement in one direction 
only was possible; hence the concentration and deployment of 
the troops would require a long time, increasing the danger of 
detection by the Italians. 2 

But there were compensating features. In the first place the 
Italians, paying insufficient heed to the maxim that "all terrains 
are passable if not defended ... by active and valiant men," 
had presumed upon the natural strength of the position by en- 
trusting its defense to weak forces of Territorials of poor quality. 
These troops were further weakened by a war weariness aggra- 
vated by Italy's long, costly, and unsuccessful efforts to break 
through the mountain barriers of the Trentino and Isonzo. 
Their morale had been dangerously lowered by the deplorable 
divisions which rent the Italian people behind the front, by the 
Italian government's neglect of the welfare of its troops, and 
by Cadorna's failure to check an enemy propaganda which 
fostered sedition and treachery within the ranks under his com- 
mand. Furthermore, the mountainous terrain made observa- 
tion of enemy back areas difficult, and in the deep valleys the 
German concentration could be more or less effectively con- 
cealed. Ludendorff states that the Italians discovered the move- 
ment, but that Cadorna apparently took no steps to meet 
the menace. Probably the extent of the danger was not easily 
observable. 

On October 24, 191 7, after a few hours' bombardment, the 
Austrian spear, tipped with its German point, was thrust deep 
into the Italian flank. The stroke was eminently successful. 
The corrupted and demoralized troops to which Cadorna rashly 
entrusted the safety of his Isonzo armies threw down their arms 
and fled or surrendered. With little opposition the Teutons 
poured through the Caporetto passes and down into the plain. 

2 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, pp. 98-113. 



BATTLE OF CAPORETTO 571 

Threatened in its rear, the whole Isonzo front collapsed and the 
Isonzo armies began a hurried retreat. 

It now began to appear that the Italian command had taken 
wholly inadequate measures to organize and fortify the natural 
defensive positions in the rear of the Isonzo. Not even the 
Tagliamento, that historic barrier against invasion from the ' 
east, seems to have been placed in a state of defense. With 
only brief checks at the successive obstacles which are provided 
by the parallel rivers flowing from the mountains to the plain 
and along which many Italian units fought magnificently to 
save the debris of their defeated armies, the enemy swept on, 
while forces in the Italian rear worked feverishly to prepare 
behind the Piave a position on which the retreat might be halted. 
When that line was reached in November the Austrians had 
taken over 200,000 prisoners and much of the Italian artillery and 
supplies; Cadorna had been retired; and the Italian nation had 
been shaken to its foundations. Only the recuperative powers 
of her armies, the patriotic devotion of her people, and the 
triumph of those among her leaders whose faith in ultimate Allied 
victory was still unimpaired, coupled with the loyal support of 
her Allies, saved Italy from the worst consequences of the dis- 
aster of Caporetto and enabled her to take ample revenge on 
another battlefield precisely one year later (see Chapter XII). 



CHAPTER XV 

THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS: 
THE RANGE-AND-BASIN BATTLEFIELD 

Near the head of the Adriatic there rise several small streams 
whose waters flow almost due eastward through the Save and 
Danube Rivers, to empty into the Black Sea. South of this 
west-to-east river trench, and separated by it from the open 
plains of Hungary and Rumania, lies the rudely triangular 
mass of complex mountainous country known as the Balkan 
Peninsula (Fig. 151). The geological history responsible for 
this mountain terrain is strikingly reflected in the topography 
of the country. A great series of rocks, including massive 
beds of limestone, were folded along northwest-southeast axes, 
and these folds deeply dissected by erosion — in places, indeed, 
worn down to an undulating surface of low elevation. Later 
the region was rent by great fractures, many of which trended 
more or less nearly in the same direction as the folds, and the 
blocks between the fractures were displaced and tilted, some 
being raised into mountain ranges, others dropped to form basin 
lowlands. Continued erosion dissected the mountains into 
wild and rugged forms (Fig. 153), while the eroded debris 
was spread out in the basins in the form of sloping alluvial fans 
(Fig. 154). Where the basins have not yet been sufficiently 
filled with debris, lakes remain or vast marshes in which the 
malaria-carrying mosquitoes breed. 

Because the folding trended northwest-southeast, the moun- 
tain ranges eroded on the folds show a prevailing trend in that 
direction. Occasional cross folding gives cross ridges, but the 
general rule holds. Because many of the basins are produced by 

Note — For Chapters XV and XVI the reader should constantly consult the 
general map of the Balkan Peninsula (Fig. 151), the sketch map of the Balkan 
battlefield (Fig. 152), and the special maps, Figs. 159, 160, and 165. Unless other- 
wise located, places mentioned in the text will be found on Fig. 151 or Fig. 152. 



GENERAL ASPECT 573 

fracturing of the earth's crust, their borders and those of the 
rimming mountains are often remarkably straight and abrupt. 
The western margin of the great Monastir basin (Fig. 158) and 
the imposing straight front of the Belashitsa Range (PI. XI, .4, 
and Fig. 159) show types of topography repeated throughout the 
Balkans and with which the American becomes familiar in the 
Great Basin region of the United States. It is this "range- 
and-basin" topography which is the dominant element in the 
surface form of the country and which most affects the life of 
the people and the prosecution of military operations in the 
peninsula. The ranges are savage and inaccessible, often for- 
ested, and frequently the homes of wild mountain tribes whose 
poverty and independence are alike traceable to their mountain 
environment. It is in the basins, where broad alluvial plains 
offer fertile lands for agriculture (Fig. 155), that the people find 
an ampler return for their toil and form more prosperous com- 
munities. 

"The mountain massifs, as well as the larger number of the 
great depressions which they shut in, naturally divide into a 
great number of little isolated units, into 'geographic regions,' 
or zhnpa." 1 This isolation of the different basins by mountain 
barriers often prevents their serving as effective routes of travel, 
and only the fact that they are often connected by stream gorges 
or low passes cut through the rimming ranges gives them any 
considerable value in this respect. Thanks to such connecting 
links a series of basins are occasionally strung together to form 
an important lowland route across the mountainous land. Thus 
from the Skoplye (Uskiib) basin containing the Vardar to the 
basin of the lower Struma (Fig. 154) and the Gulf of Orfano there 
is a series of basins and passes which, before the construction 
of the railway down the lower Vardar valley, formed the great 
route of travel between the central and southern parts of the 
peninsula, between Serbia and the Byzantine countries. 2 It 
was only when the railroad made it easier to traverse the gorges 

1 Jovan Cvijic: La Peninsule Balkanique: Geographie humaine, Paris, 1918, p. 17. 

2 Cvijic, p. 21. 



574 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 




STRATEGIC POSITION 575 

connecting several basins on the lower Vardar, as well as the 
gorge between the Leskovats and Kumanovo basins, that the 
great Morava-Vardar route could be strictly adhered to through- 
out its whole length. 

Today the famous Morava-Vardar corridor uniting Belgrade 
and Saloniki is not only the vital artery it has always been 
throughout history, but can easily be traversed without even 
local detours. A similar series of basins with connecting gorges 
and passes makes up the historic Morava-Maritsa corridor 
uniting Belgrade and Constantinople. These two great path- 
ways constitute the only important lines of communication 
across the Balkan barrier and form the key to the military 
geography of the region. Our emphasis will therefore be placed 
upon these vital arteries. For them the bounding ranges on 
either side serve as natural protective barriers through which 
the more isolated basins offer indifferent passage. 

Strategic Position of the Balkan Battlefield 

It is obvious that a terrain which forms a mountain barrier 
just at the doorway from one continent to another, and which 
at the same time includes within its limits two of the chief 
pathways offering possibility of movement between the two 
land masses, must have a peculiar strategic importance. Here 
indeed is one of those vital spots on the earth's surface where 
to block the pathways and defend the barriers may be to turn 
aside the whole course of history. 

Importance of the Morava-Maritsa Corridor 

The full significance of the Morava-Maritsa corridor can be 
appreciated only in case we recall the important r61e it has always 
played in the history of the Nearer East. From all parts of 
Europe highways of travel converge southeastward toward 
the points where Occident and Orient touch hands at the Bos- 
porus. Whether coming from the plains of the Po over the Pear 
Tree Pass, from western and central Europe along the upper 
Danube, or from farther north through the Moravian and 



576 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

other gaps to the Vienna gateway, travelers find the mass of 
the Balkans blocking the path to Constantinople and the East; 
just as in other days the hosts which invaded Europe from 
the lands of Asia Minor found in this same barrier an impedi- 
ment to progress toward the northwest. Under these condi- 
tions it was inevitable that a continuous corridor cutting clear 
through the barrier from the plains of Hungary to the shores 
of the Bosporus should become a topographic feature of com- 
manding historical importance. 

Long before the time of the Romans the Morava-Maritsa 
depression had become a highway for peoples migrating east 
or west through the mountainous Balkan lands. In a later 
day one of the principal Roman military roads led from Belgrade 
through the trench to Constantinople. The great Slavonic 
flood which issued from the plains of northeastern Europe 
through the Moravian and Vienna gateways entered the Morava 
valley and, in the seventh century of our era, was flowing through 
the trench to surge about the walls of Adrianople. A few cen- 
turies more, and the mountain sides were echoing the shouts 
of the Crusaders who toiled along the same pathway to fight 
for the Holy Sepulcher. Back through the same defile came 
those hordes of conquering Turks who pushed the limits of their 
misrule to the very gates of Vienna. In our day a double line 
of steel rails has succeeded trail and military road, and the smoke 
of the Orient Express hangs low in the very valley where, cen- 
turies ago, dust clouds were raised by the passing of Roman 
legions, Crusading knights, or Turkish infantry. Here is the 
vital link in the great Berlin-to-Bagdad railway route, the channel 
through which German ambition hoped to reach the Far East, 
and the path by which the Teutonic powers had to send men and 
munitions to the hard-pressed Turks and bring back food to 
their own hungry people. 

Importance of the Morava- Vardar Corridor 

Second only to the Morava-Maritsa corridor in importance is 
the deep trench which cuts through the Balkans from north 



STRATEGIC POSITION 




J — — -r— ■ I . {.: •• ■ .. ■ ■ '■ ■ ■ - ■■ ■ ■ 



>i.«A?i 






S*S; :< :vi 








A 






>v 




IK 



Fig. 152 — Generalized sketch map of the Battlefield of the Balkans. Cross- 
ruled areas represent mountainous country, white areas the principal basins and 
valley trenches. See also the maps of the barriers and trenches (Fig. 151), of the 
Saloniki region (Fig. 159I, of northwestern Serbia (Fig. 160), and of the Moglenitsa 
region (Fig. 1051. 

to south, connecting Belgrade with Saloniki. The Morava- 
Yardar depression does not lead to the land bridge uniting 
Europe with Asia Minor, but it does serve as a most important 



578 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 




STRATEGIC POSITION 579 

outlet channel from the plains of Hungary to the Mediterranean 
Sea, and is one of the shortest routes from Central Europe to 
the Suez Canal. From southern Germany and the eastern 
Alps, the Carpathian foothills and the Alps of Transylvania, and 
from all of the great Hungarian basin, the valley routes lead 
straight to Belgrade, whence the Morava-Vardar valley cleaves 
a way through the mountains to the open waters beyond. 

It is not without reason that the Morava-Vardar corridor 
has been called the key to the history of the Balkan Peninsula. 
Through it ebbed and flowed the tides of repeated invasions 
from the dawn of history. Under Roman dominion most of 
it was occupied by an important military road. Through it 
the Ostrogoths entered northern Greece in the fifth century 
of our era, while names still found on the map of Greece bear 
witness to the great Slav flood which, two centuries later, flowed 
through the corridor and overwhelmed the Greek peninsula. 
The story of the Serb race is largely the story of a struggle for 
control of this vital artery of communication. Austria's am- 
bition to seize for her own uses a channel to the sea which should 
not open on the inclosed Adriatic was the mainspring of her 
reactionary policy in Balkan affairs. Bulgaria, realizing that 
the nation which dominates the Morava-Vardar depression 
must ultimately dominate the politics of the peninsula, pre- 
cipitated the Second Balkan War in order to make good by force 
of arms her claim to a section of the corridor; and the same in- 
centive played an important part in determining Bulgaria's 
alliance with the Teutonic powers in the World War. 

The Corridors As Objects of Enemy Strategy 
The immediate object of the Balkan campaign of 1 91 5 was 
to secure for Germany complete control of the Morava-Maritsa 
corridor and the Orient railway which runs through it from Bel- 
grade to Constantinople (Fig. 151). Roughly, one-third of the 
depression was in Turkish territory and therefore already sub- 
ject to German supervision; one-third was in Bulgaria; and 
the remaining third in Serbia. German diplomacy set itself 



5 8o 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 







J«r 



STRATEGIC POSITION 581 

the task of inducing Bulgaria to become an ally of the Central 
Powers, in order that the middle third of the Morava-Maritsa 
corridor might pass under German control without a contest 
and in order, further, that Bulgarian troops might bear the brunt 
of the fighting necessary to capture the remaining third from 
Serbian hands. 

This was truly an ambitious plan, but certain considerations 
having a geographic basis made it possible for German}- to 
crown the program with success, and that with slight cost and 
incalculable profit to herself. The close of the Second Balkan 
War found Bulgaria not only bitter from the disastrous defeat 
with which her treachery to her allies had been punished, but 
suffering serious geographical disadvantages from the illogical 
boundaries forced upon her. Rumania's appropriation of the 
Dobrudja brought hostile territory close to Bulgaria's chief 
seaport, Yarna, and also menaced the safety of the railway 
connecting with the port, since this line lies parallel to the new 
boundary and close to the frontier. The natural outlet for all 
central Bulgaria is to the Mediterranean by way of the lower 
Maritsa River; but the reconquest of Adrianople by the Turks 
led to a division of territory which forced Bulgarian goods en 
route downstream to the Bulgarian port of Dedeagach to cross 
through a small section of Turkey. The only other natural 
channel to the Mediterranean from Bulgarian lands was down 
the Struma valley to the port of Kavala; but Greece in her 
turn had insisted on a boundary which should leave the lower 
course of the river and the port in her hands, thus compelling 
Bulgarian commerce by this route to pass through Greek terri- 
tory. Finally, Serbia obtained possession of that section of 
the Morava-Yardar corridor which Bulgaria had coveted, leaving 
to the latter no part of the key to future power in the Balkans. 
The opening of the present war thus found Bulgaria with a 
serious geographical grievance against every one of her neigh- 
bors. With coast lines bordering on two seas, every bit of her 
commerce, save only that with Russia, was forced to pass through 
hostile lands. 



582 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 




STRATEGIC POSITION 583 

Here was a fertile field for German diplomatic effort, and 
Bulgaria lent a willing ear to plans which promised immediate 
redress of past wrongs. Turkey was induced to return to Bul- 
garia the strip of land west of the lower Maritsa, thereby insur- 
ing to her a railway connection to her Mediterranean port lying 
wholly within her own boundaries. As a further reward for 
direct action against Serbia, Bulgaria should receive the coveted 
section of the Morava-Vardar corridor, the conquest of which 
would be rendered easy by Teutonic co-operation from the 
north. It was a bargain in valleys. In return for free use of 
the upper Maritsa valley and assistance in effecting the conquest 
of the Morava valley, Bulgaria was to receive a part of the lower 
Maritsa valley and a section of the Vardar valley. German 
diplomacy won, the geographic bargain was made, and from that 
moment there remained only the problem of forcibly seizing 
the Morava-Vardar corridor. 

While conquest of the Morava valley and its continuation 
up the tributary Nishava was alone necessary to complete Teu- 
tonic possession of the Belgrade-Constantinople railway route, 
two considerations made a comprehensive campaign against 
the entire Morava-Vardar corridor essential. In the first place, 
as we have just seen, the Vardar valley had to be secured for 
political reasons, since its possession by Bulgaria constituted 
an essential part of the Teuton-Bulgar bargain. But military 
reasons also required its capture. It constituted the one effective 
line of communication leading to the Serbian armies defending 
the northern frontier. To cut it was to deprive those armies 
of reinforcements, munitions, and other supplies coming from 
the south. Furthermore, possession of the Morava-Maritsa 
corridor would never be secure so long as Serbia and her allies 
held the Vardar depression, for at any moment they might 
launch a bolt along this natural groove which would sever 
the Orient railway at Nish and thus undo all that had been 
accomplished through the new alliance with Bulgaria. For 
the Teuton-Bulgar forces the capture of the combined Morava 
and Vardar valleys thus became a single military problem. 



84 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

After the establishment of the battle line across the narrow part 
of the Balkan Peninsula between Valona and Saloniki, this front 
acquired special strategic significance. It was henceforth the 
short barrier which on the one hand prevented a Teuton-Bulgar 
advance into old Greece and the utilization of the indented Greek 
coast for enemy submarine bases, and on the other hand pre- 
vented the Allies from sweeping in behind the Teutonic armies 
holding the Italian and Western fronts. When depletion of the 
enemy's reserves had reached the point where it was a question 
of his holding a short front or none at all in the Balkans, this 
sector was critically important — the key to swift and decisive 
victory. For if it could be broken, the enemy's inability to 
provide sufficient forces to hold the longer front farther north, 
made necessary by the form of the peninsula, would throw open 
to attack the vital bases and communications upon which the 
Western armies depended for their existence. The Battlefield of 
the Balkans became, in fact, an exposed flank of the Western 
front. While the line on this field was yet unbroken, although 
the war was in its last phase and hope of a German victory was 
gone, Ludendorff could say: "We still had reason to hope that 
we should maintain our position; in Italy and Macedonia our 
flanks and rear were covered." He fully realized that the defec- 
tion of Bulgaria would "lay open Austria's flank, and therefore 
ours, to the Entente," and that "it made no difference whether 
our defeat came in Macedonia or in the West. . . It was vital 
to do everything to secure our position in the Balkan Peninsula, 
in order to prevent the Entente moving into Hungary and 
making a flank attack on Germany and Austria." A fortnight 
after the short Balkan front was destroyed and the Teuton 
flank exposed, Von Hindenburg advised the German Chancellor 
that "as a result of the collapse of the Macedonian front, and of 
the weakening of our reserves in the West which this has neces- 
sitated, and in view of the impossibility of making good the very 
heavy losses of the last few days . . . the only right course is 
to give up the fight." 3 

3 Ludendorff, Vol. 2, pp. 275, 353, 368, 370, 3S6. 



MORAVA-MARITSA CORRIDOR 585 

Surface Features of the Balkan Peninsula 
form of the morava-maritsa corridor 

Let us examine for a moment the physical characteristics of 
the lowland corridors which have figured so prominently in the 
past history, both political and military, of southeastern Europe. 
The mouth of the Morava valley is widely open to the plains of 
Hungary, where the Morava River unites with the Danube 
some miles east of Belgrade. Southward up the river the valley 
narrows gradually, and the hills on either side rise to moun- 
tainous proportions; but as far up as Nish it is fairly broad, with 
a flat and sometimes marshy flood plain over which the river 
flows in a complicated meandering course, with occasional 
oxbow lakes and braided channels. Only at two points, where 
the river has probably cut through ridges of exceptionally 
resistant rock, does the valley narrow to a more youthful form 
and force the better roads to make long detours over the hills. 
There is usually ample room for a main road on each side of 
the river, while the railway crosses from one bank to the other 
in order to connect with the larger towns located on the valley 
floor (Fig. 156). The river is navigable halfway up to Nish, and 
throughout the entire distance the flood-plain soils yield rich har- 
vests of maize and wheat. 

From Nish the Morava-Maritsa depression leads southeast- 
ward up a branch stream called the Nishava, to a low divide 
within Bulgarian territory. The valley of the Nishava is more 
youthful than that of the Morava and is so narrow in places 
that the wagon road twice abandons it for a course across the 
mountains. The railway is able to follow it throughout, how- 
ever, and in one place the valley widens into a broad basin on 
the floor of which lies the important town of Pirot. Here for- 
tresses crowned the adjacent hills to guard against a Bulgar 
invasion of Serbia along this comparatively easy path. 

After crossing the divide at Dragoman Pass, about 2,500 feet 
above sea level, both road and railway descend to the broad, 
fertile floor of the Sofia basin. As this trends northwest-south- 



5 86 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 



east it is in line with the general course of the Morava-Maritsa 
corridor, although it drains to the northeast through a narrow- 
outlet gorge into the Danube. At the southeastern end of the 
basin the low Vakarel Pass, but little higher than the Dragoman, 
is crossed, and road and railway easily reach the much larger 
basin drained by the Maritsa River and its tributaries. 

The Maritsa takes a direct course toward Constantinople 
for more than 150 miles, then turns abruptly southward to the 




Fig. 156 — Wagon train passing through the flooded Morava valley, part of the 
great north-south corridor through the Balkan mountains. It was the cutting of 
this artery of communication by the Bulgars which assured the conquest of Serbia. 
(Copyright by Underwood and Underwood.) 



Mediterranean Sea. At this sudden bend in the river stands 
the fortified city of Adrianople. Except for a short distance 
below the city, the Maritsa no longer serves as part of the great 
pathway to Constantinople but becomes a segment in the natural 
moat, consisting of the Tundja and lower Maritsa valleys, which 
in the past has repeatedly provided Constantinople with an ad- 
mirable first line of defense against attack from the west. Above 
Adrianople the river is too frequently obstructed with sand bars 
to be of much use for navigation, but its broad basin carries the 
road and railway which follow the southern bank of the stream. 



MORAVA-VARDAR CORRIDOR 587 

South of Adrianople the small Ergene River flows to the Maritsa 
from the east, and its valley offers a very gentle grade which 
the railway ascends till within a few miles of Constantinople. 

FORM OF THE MORAVA-VARDAR CORRIDOR 

The physical characteristics of the Morava valley as far up 
as Nish have already been discussed in connection with the 
Morava-Maritsa trench. From Nish southward to Leskovats, 




Fig. 157 — Austrian forces assembled along the Save River barrier, ready to 
attempt the invasion of Serbia. The breadth and volume of the river make the 
construction of temporary bridges a difficult task. (Copyright by Underwood and 
Underwood.) 

road and railway traverse one of the open intermontane basins 
which so frequently occur in the midst of the Balkan ranges; 
but farther south the stream flows from a youthful gorge which 
continues up the river for ten or twenty miles before the valley 
again broadens out to a somewhat more mature form. Just 
north of Kumanovo lies the divide between the Morava and 
Vardar drainage, a low, inconspicuous water-parting some 1,500 
feet above sea level, located in the bottom of the continuous, 
through-going depression and placing no serious difficulties 
in the way of railroad construction. 



588 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

South of Kumanovo the valley broadens into a triangular 
basin, near the three corners of which stand Kumanovo, Skoplye, 
and Veles. The main Vardar River enters the basin from the 
west, flowing out again at the south through a narrow, winding 
valley which carries the railway but no good wagon road. At 
Demir Kapu the valley narrows to an almost impassable gorge 
for a distance of several miles but soon broadens again to form 
another basin or group of open flats, near the southern end of 
which lies Gyevgyeli (Fig. 159). South of this town the river 
once more enters a narrow gorge, the Gipsy Pass, cut through 
the Gyevgyeli plateau, thence to issue into a wide basin or 
flat-floored valley in which the river follows a braided and oc- 
casionally meandering channel to the sea. The lower course 
of the Vardar lies in a very broad, marshy plain terminating 
in the delta southwest of Saloniki. The special strategic im- 
portance of the triangular basin near Skoplye and of the Demir 
Kapu and Gipsy gorges will appear in subsequent pages. 

While the Morava River is navigable for small boats from the 
mouth halfway up to Nish, the upper Vardar is too full of rapids 
and its lower course too full of sand bars to make river traffic 
practicable. The strategic value of the Morava-Vardar corridor, 
like that of the Morava-Maritsa, lies in the fact that, notwith- 
standing it occasionally narrows to gorgelike proportions, it 
gives an unbroken channelway clear through a rugged moun- 
tain barrier. 

Let us examine next the physiographic features which serve 
as natural defenses of the important Morava-Maritsa and 
Morava-Vardar corridors. 

Natural Defenses of the Two Corridors 
The Morava valley is widely open to the north and is there 
bounded on both sides by comparatively low hills. An enemy 
securing a foothold in the rolling country to the east or west 
could enter from either of these directions as well as from the 
north, just as the Orient railway coming from Belgrade enters 
the valley from the west, 25 miles above its mouth. Hence 



SAVE-DANUBE BARRIER 589 

an effective barrier against attack from the north must cover 
more than the actual breadth of the northern entrance to 
the valley. Such a barrier is provided by the natural moat of 
the Save and Danube Rivers, which protects the entire northern 
frontier of Serbia, and by the hills south of the moat which, as 
one progresses southward, rise into a wild, mountainous highland. 

THE SAVE-DANUBE BARRIER 

The Save is a large river swinging in great meanders across 
a broad, marshy flood plain (Fig. 157). The extensive swamp 
lands on either side of the river are difficult to traverse at any 
time, while the flood waters which spread over the lowland in 
spring and autumn often make the barrier quite impassable 
except at one or two points. South of Mitrovitsa and west of 
Shabats the marshy peninsula between the Drina and the Save is 
called the Machva (Fig. 160) and is famous for its inhospitable 
character. In volume the Save is of sufficient size to constitute 
an obstacle against invasion, but for navigation it suffers from 
its overlong meandering course and from frequent shifting of 
channels and sand bars. At no point is the stream fordable, 
and at Belgrade alone is it crossed by a bridge. 

The Danube is a river of imposing volume, in places from one 
to several miles wide. Its value as a defense against invasion 
is very great, notwithstanding that the numerous islands which 
mark its braided course from Belgrade east to the Iron Gate 
gorge offer some advantages for a crossing by dividing the width 
into several parts easier to negotiate by pontoons. It is unford- 
able and unbridged. East of the braided section the river ex- 
changes its open valley for a narrow, winding gorge which cuts 
through a mountainous upland and reaches its most imposing 
aspect at the Iron Gate near Orsova. The walls of the gorge, 
sometimes forest-clad, sometimes bare rock, are exceedingly 
steep; while the mighty volume of water constricted within 
its narrower channel gives a river which is both swift and deep. 
To cross such a barrier in the face of enemy fire would severely 
test the abilities of the best-trained soldiery. 



59Q BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

It is not strange that so impressive a natural obstacle as the 
Save-Danube valley should have served for centuries as a bul- 
wark against invasion of the Balkan Peninsula from the north, 
nor that it should long have been the physical barrier separating 
the dominions of the Sultan from Austrian lands. In combina- 
tion with the difficult hill country to the south, the great natural 
moat furnished the Serbians with an admirable defensive screen, 
in attempting to pierce which the Teutonic armies suffered more 
than one costly defeat. 

THE BALKAN AND RHODOPE MOUNTAINS 

The natural defenses of the Morava-Maritsa corridor have 
only an academic interest in so far as the World War is concerned, 
since the greater part of its length lay securely within the ter- 
ritory of Germany's allies. It was never directly attacked, nor 
was it in serious danger of attack from the north at any time. 
From the south it was threatened only after the collapse of 
Bulgaria in the last days of the war. Had the Rumanian cam- 
paign been more wisely conducted and had it received proper 
Russian support, the great Balkan Range which defends the 
corridor on the north from near the Iron Gate of the Danube at 
the west to the Black Sea on the east, would have played an 
important role. This imposing wall is cut through by two rivers, 
the Timok and the Isker, each of which is followed by a minor 
railway, while a third railway crosses through a sag in the crest 
farther east. On the other hand, had the Saloniki army been 
able to undertake a large-scale offensive before the disintegration 
of the Bulgarian armies rendered them incapable of defending 
any terrain, the formidable mass of the Rhodope Mountains, 
through which the Struma River alone has cut a practicable 
gateway, must have bulked large in the military operations. As 
it was, they served to discourage any offensive on the part of 
forces which were already handicapped by the fear of Greek 
treachery in their rear. 

Throughout its entire length the Morava-Vardar corridor is 
protected on the east by a complex of mountain ridges repre- 



BALKANS AND RHODOPES 591 

senting the western end of the great Rhodope massif and the 
westernmost members of the impressive Balkan Range. All of 
these mountains appear to have reached a mature stage of 
dissection, in which the maximum degree of ruggedness is 
attained. A maze of steep-sided ridges and peaks rises from one 
to several thousand feet above the bottoms of narrow valleys, 
while at the north the mountain barrier is reinforced by the 
gorge of the lower Timok River and a short section of the Danube 
valley. Much of this difficult country is forested, and no part 
of it could be crossed with ease by a hostile army. 

The Vital Passes 

There are, nevertheless, certain pathways through the eastern 
barrier which may be forced by a foe possessing superior num- 
bers. Chief among these is the segment of the great Morava- 
Maritsa corridor carved by the Nishava River, which stream 
rises in what was before the war Bulgarian territory and flows 
directly through the barrier into the Morava-Vardar trench at 
the critically important junction near Nish. To stop this gap the 
fortifications of Pirot just inside the Serbian border were con- 
structed. Zayechar, another fortified town farther north, 
guards the common entrance to branches of the upper Timok 
valleys, through which hostile forces might ascend to passes 
whence the drop into the Morava valley is readily effected. 
The Vlasina, Kriva, and Bregalnitsa Rivers, rising at or near the 
Serbo-Bulgarian boundary on the crest of the main range south- 
east of Nish and flowing westward to the Morava and the Vardar, 
lead to the corridor at Leskovats basin, at Kumanovo, and in the 
Veles region. Finally, the broadly open Strumitsa valley, 
formerly mainly in Bulgarian territory but heading close to the 
lower Vardar, afforded access to several passes from which it was 
but a few hours' march to the Vardar valley either above or below 
the Demir Kapu gorge. 

It appears, therefore, that despite the protection afforded 
by difficult mountainous country east of the Morava-Vardar 
line, the corridor was open to attack at a number of critical 



592 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

points, provided the invading forces were sufficiently large to 
overwhelm resistance and drive their columns through the nar- 
row valleys. This danger was the more acute because along 
much of the eastern frontier Bulgarian territory reached to the 
crest of the mountain barrier and in some places even beyond 
the crest to the western, or Serbian, slope. It should be noted, 
furthermore, that the hostile territory flanked the Morava- 
Vardar corridor throughout practically its entire length, usually 
lying not more than fifty miles distant, while near Vranye and 
just north of the Greek border westward protrusions of the 
Bulgarian frontier reduced the distance to a dozen miles or less. 
The largest and most vital artery carrying the life blood of 
Serbia lay dangerously near the surface, and a single stab of 
the Bulgarian knife might prove fatal. 

THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS 

West of the Morava-Vardar corridor the threat of danger 
was less imminent, and the natural protective screen more 
effective. Although Bosnia and HertsegOvina were in Austrian 
hands, the people were more or less hostile to their new rulers 
and favorably disposed toward the Serbs. Montenegro was 
Serbia's ally, while uncertain Albania was not an important 
factor in any event. Across the Adriatic lay Italy, one of the 
Allied powers. Only at the north, then, was there danger of 
an attack upon the Morava-Vardar line from the west; while 
farther south succor from friends, rather than attacks from en- 
emies, was to be expected from the direction of the Adriatic. 

The broad belt of mountains lying between the Morava- 
Vardar depression and the Adriatic shore is one of the most im- 
posing topographic barriers in Europe. From the earliest times 
it has stood as an almost impassable wall cutting off the people 
of central Serbia from all effective intercourse with the in- 
habitants of the Italian peninsula. In the Middle Ages, Ragusa 
and other Slavonic cities on the Adriatic coast, although part 
of a Serbian province and the home of a flourishing school of 
Serbian literature, found communication with the interior so 



THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS 593 

difficult and with Italy so easy that they came under Venetian 
instead of Serbian control. The same mountain wall which 
so long prevented extension of Serbian power westward to the 
sea likewise served for centuries as an effective barrier against 
the eastward migration of Western European civilization into 
the dominion of the Turks. In 19 14 no railroad had crossed 
the barrier to Unite the great valley of central Serbia south of 
Belgrade with the sea. 

Included in the mountainous belt are ranges high enough to 
carry snow caps until the month of August, and the name "Al- 
bania" is believed by some to have its origin in the snowy ap- 
pearance of that wild region. It is said that the "accursed 
mountains" of northern Albania and eastern Montenegro include 
some of the least explored lands of all Europe. Just as the 
mountains of Wales and the Highlands of Scotland preserve 
languages and customs which have been driven from the open 
country of England, so the fastnesses of the Albanian hills 
have kept alive a difficult language that is older than classical 
Greek and customs which render the rude inhabitants of the 
country a picturesque subject for study. The conquering arm 
of the Turk reduced the Bulgarian inhabitants of open plains 
to complete subjection within a comparatively short time; 
but a century and a quarter was required to secure a less firm 
hold upon the mountainous lands of Serbia, while the inaccessi- 
ble wilds of Albania and Montenegro were never completely 
subjected to Turkish power. Montenegro was the last Serbian 
stronghold to yield to Turkish supremacy and the first to regain 
complete independence. 

The physical characteristics of a belt of country so difficult 
to traverse deserve a word of further description. In the north 
the mountains, eroded on earth folds of the Appalachian type 
and trending northwest-southeast parallel to the northern 
Adriatic coast, rise from 5,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level 
in the higher ranges. Between the hard rock ridges streams have 
excavated parallel valleys on the weaker beds, but these valleys 
are of little real service to man since they lie at right angles 



594 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 





THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS 595 

to the natural course of his movements between coast and interior. 
Farther south the rock structure is more complex, and the moun- 
tain ridges produced by erosion accordingly of more complicated 

pattern. 

The Karst Region 

Among the rocks involved in the mountain building, limestone 
is a conspicuous element, and its soluble nature has imposed a 
peculiarly forbidding aspect on the topography. Most of the 
rainfall passes underground through sink holes and smaller 
solution cavities and then finds its way through subterranean 
channels to a few principal rivers, lakes, or the sea. As a con- 
sequence much of the mountain country is dry and barren, 
springs are far apart, and the open watercourses difficult of access 
because deeply intrenched in rock-walled gorges. The "gaunt, 
naked rocks of the cruel karst country" are not only themselves 
of little value to mankind, but they render inaccessible and 
therefore comparatively useless many excellent harbors on the 
eastern coast of the Adriatic. Hence the vital importance of 
Fiume, located where the barrier is narrow and easily crossed 
near the head of the Adriatic, as an economic outlet for the 
Yugoslav people. 

Because the limestones are purer and more abundant along 
the coastal border we find that the karst topography is there 
best developed. Farther inland the maze of hills is occasionally 
broken by one of the intermontane basins, the center of whose 
broad floor may be covered by marshland or lake while through- 
out its remaining portion the fertile soils derived from impure 
limestone and other rocks yield good returns to the cultivator. 
Among the largest of the basins (Fig. 152) are those in which 
Monastir and Ipek are located; the Tetovo basin, west of Skop- 
lye (Uskiib), where a branch of the Vardar takes its rise ; and the 
famous Kosovo Polye, or Plain of the Blackbirds, southeast of 
Mitrovitsa on the Ibar, where in its last great effort against the 
advancing Turk the Serbian army suffered defeat in 1389. It is 
largely to these areas that one must credit such measure of pros- 
perity as is vouchsafed the dwellers of this western mountain 



596 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

barrier; but absence of connecting lowlands makes the basins of 
small service in expediting travel across the region. 

It is true that certain rivers cut through the mountain ranges 
to reach the sea; but not one of these has carved a valley suit- 
able to serve as a highway between the coast and the central 
Morava-Vardar corridor. For the most part the cross valleys 
are narrow and deep, and bounded by the steep, rocky walls 
characteristic of young gorges cut in limestone. Falls and rapids 
are frequent, and the headwaters usually end in a maze of ridges 
some distance west of the central depression. The valley of 
the Narenta carries a narrow-gauge railway through the moun- 
tains of Bosnia and Hertsegovina to a pass across which Sarayevo 
and the valley of the Save are accessible; but in 19 14 the only 
branch line running east to the Serbian border terminated in 
the vicinity of Vishegrad, while the nearest railway terminus 
of the Serbian system was more than twenty miles across the 
mountains at Uzhitse, at the head of a branch of the Western 
Morava valley. Through the gorge of the middle Narenta the 
course of the railway is difficult, and the crossing of the pass is 
made possible only by using a rack-and-pinion arrangement, 
which indicates the unsatisfactory character of the route for com- 
mercial purposes. The next river of importance to the south is 
the Drin, which reaches the sea near Scutari; but it flows in a 
gorge so wild and deep that the poor trails of the district often 
leave it for a course across the barren hills. When a column of 
Serbian troops successfully negotiated this defile during the 
First Balkan War, the feat was hailed as a great military accom- 
plishment. The Shkumbi valley offers an entrance from Durazzo 
to the rail end at Monastir, but traffic by this route must cross 
three mountain passes. A famous Roman road, the Via Egnatia, 
followed this valley; and the only other two important roads 
to cross the barrier in Roman times had their locations deter- 
mined by the Narenta and the Drin, although in each case 
the stream gorge was abandoned in places for a more feasible 
course over the uplands. Of these former roads little remains 
today except rugged mule paths. From the standpoint of 



ENTRENCHED CAMP OF SALONIKI 597 

military geography the broad mountain belt west of the Morava- 
Vardar corridor is practically impassable. 

There are within this western mountain belt three depressions 
which have relatively little value as parts of cross routes to the 
sea but which we must keep in mind if we are fully to under- 
stand certain aspects of the campaign against Serbia. First 
among these is the open Kolubara valley, at the head of which 
stands Valyevo (Fig. 160). A small railway of some military 
value traverses the valley and connects the town with the Save 
River. Directly south across the Malyen ridge, the Western 
Morava valley heads near Uzhitse and runs east to join the 
main trench. The Western Morava River is a mature stream 
meandering on a flat flood plain of considerable breadth and is 
bordered by a narrow-gauge railway connecting Uzhitse with 
the Orient Express line. Finally, the Kosovo Polye, already 
mentioned, forms part of a subsidiary lowland parallel to the 
main Morava depression (Fig. 151). Northwestward the basin is 
replaced by the long, narrow, winding gorge of the Ibar, which 
unites with the Western Morava but which is not followed 
throughout its length by so much as a good wagon road. To 
the southeast the basin is drained by the Lepenitsa River, 
which flows through a narrow outlet gorge at Kachanik, the so- 
called Kachanik Pass, to unite with the Vardar at Skoplye. 
An important railway leaves the Nish-Saloniki line at Skoplye 
and runs through the Kachanik gorge and Kosovo Polye to 
Mitrovitsa on the Ibar. 

The Entrenched Camp of Saloniki 
The r61e which the great Allied base at Saloniki played in 
the World War justifies particular attention to the remarkable 
terrain which offered, ready prepared by Nature, a practically 
impregnable position for an entrenched camp.. The high de- 
fensive value of this remarkable terrain is due to an unusually 
pronounced development of the "range-and-basin" topography 
which we have discussed on earlier pages. Roughly speaking, 
two raised and tilted blocks of strongly folded crystalline lime- 



598 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 







ENTRENCHED CAMP OF SALONIKI 599 

stone, schists, and granite forming mountain ranges, and two 
down-dropped strips forming long, comparatively narrow basins 
floored with alluvial deposits, all showing the prevailing north- 
west-southeast trend, form the key to the defensive system which 
defied the Central Powers for several years and prevented them 
from driving the Allies into the sea. 

The Inner Wall 

The southernmost block slopes gradually upward from the 
three-pronged Chalkidike Peninsula (Fig. 152) to fall off more 
abruptly into the basin on the north. Saloniki lies at the south- 
west base of this first block near its western end, where it is 
called the Khortach Range (Fig. 159). This partially wooded 
but arid upland is broken by minor fractures into subsidiary 
blocks and basins, which we need not consider here, and is dis- 
sected by stream erosion into a maze of hills offering good de- 
fensive positions. Just north of Saloniki there is a low gap in 
the range called the Dervend col, or pass, which is in line with a 
similar depression in the next block farther north (the Lahana 
saddle mentioned below) and with the general direction of the 
Struma River before its abrupt turn southeastward toward the 
Gulf of Orfano. In his admirable description of the geography of 
this portion of Macedonia, Captain A. G. Ogilvie has suggested 
that the Struma may formerly have continued southward to the 
Gulf of Saloniki and so have cut these notches before being 
deflected to its present course. 4 However that may be, the two 
passes determine the path of the main road from Saloniki to 
Seres and the only crossing of importance over the Khortach 
Range east of the Saloniki-Doiran railway. 

North of this first mountain block is the long basin (Fig. 159), 
from two to six miles wide, stretching from the Vardar River east- 
ward nearly to the Gulf of Orfano, a distance of some sixty miles. 
The floor of this great natural moat, usually barren of trees and 
well exposed to fire directed from the mountain wall to the south, 

4 A. G. Ogilvie: A Contribution to the Geography of Macedonia, Geogr. Journ., 
Vol. 55, 1920, pp. 1-34- 



600 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

is further defended by an almost continuous belt of lakes, 
marshes, and marshy rivers occupying the depression. Langadha 
and Beshik Lakes with their marshy shores are of themselves 
formidable obstacles, and passage across or between them can 
easily be prevented by fortifying the northward projecting bastion 
of the Ogurli plateau and the northern hills of the Khortach 
Range. Westward a smaller lake and several minor streams, to- 
gether with their bordering marshes, present less noteworthy 
obstacles which help to make the lowland trench, when swept by 
fire from the heights to the south, an almost impassable barrier. 
It was on the southern mountain block, fronted by the natural 
moat of the Langadha-Beshik basin, that the Allies constructed 
their inner trench system, adapted to defense by the small 
forces originally available and humorously called by the British 
the "bird-cage lines." The front line trenches were usually 
placed at the northern base of the mountain wall so as to sweep 
the smooth alluvial slopes, descending gently toward the center 
of the depression, with a grazing machine-gun fire. Barbed 
wire defenses were placed on the alluvial plain to retard the 
enemy and keep him subjected to this deadly fire as long as 
possible. A second system of trenches farther back and higher 
up on the face of the range commanded a broader sweep of the 
plain with excellent observation and artillery control. The 
third position consisted of a series of strong redoubts along the 
crest, with subsidiary intervening field works. The smooth glacis 
of the alluvial slope lent itself admirably to machine-gun defense, 
upon which the strongest reliance was placed. On the west the 
Vardar River and its broad marshes carried the defensive system 
southward to the Gulf of Saloniki, where the Allied fleet could 
hold the approaches to the "bird-cage lines" under the fire of its 
guns. Thanks to the natural features of the terrain the Allies 
possessed in this inner defensive system a well-nigh impregnable 

position. 

The Outer Wall 

The same may be said of the outer system, prepared and occu- 
pied when sufficient troops were available to hold the longer lines. 



ENTRENCHED CAMP OF SALONIKI 601 

Northeast of the Langadha-Beshik basin the next block rises, grad- 
ually in its western half where it forms the Krusha Balkan, more 
steeply farther east in the Beshik Range, to drop off by a slope 
that is often precipitous into the Struma basin (Fig. 159). As in 
the case of the southern block, the Krusha-Beshik mass is in 
places broken into minor ranges and basins; but the general form 
of the tilted block remains fairly distinct. The traveler crossing 
the Krusha Balkan from the southwest is profoundly impressed 
by the long and gradual character of the ascent and astonished at 
the abruptness of the northeastern descent. Here and there along 
the northeastern scarp he may see a broad bench or terrace part 
way down the slope, apparently a slice of the broken mass which 
has dropped part way down the fracture face. A dense growth 
of brush covers this steep face of the range and, by limiting an 
enemy advance to the roads cut through it, simplifies the prob- 
lem of defense. Streams have deeply trenched the more gentle 
backslope, dissecting the undulating surface into a maze of hills 
across which movement is difficult and confined to a very few roads 
supplemented by mule paths. Seen from the south these hills 
appear arid and barren; but the northern declivities of the higher 
ones near the crest are, like the steep main scarp, clothed with a 
dense cover of brush. The Lahana saddle between the higher 
Krusha and Beshik sectors of the range gives passage to the 
Saloniki-Seres road, the only important route which crosses it 
between Lake Doiran and the sea. 

Like a great moat fronting the Krusha-Beshik range on the 
northeast, the Doiran-Struma basin stretches from Lake Doiran 
to the Gulf of Orfano. Seventy-five miles in length and varying 
in width from three to a dozen miles or more, this down-dropped 
strip of the earth's crust is one of the most striking topographic 
features in Macedonia (Fig. 159). The beautiful alluvial fans 
spreading out across it from the high Belashitsa block mountain 
(PI. XI, A) and the ranges to the southeast have forced the But- 
kova and Struma Rivers over toward the southwestern side of the 
trench, where they form, together with the vast marshes and inter- 
lacing channels bordering them , a serious military obstacle dom- 



602 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

inated by the Krusha-Beshik heights. Lakes Ahinos and But- 
kova, bordered by marshes which vary in extent with the chang- 
ing seasons, increase the strength of the barrier. For an enemy 
to traverse several miles of smooth, open plain in full view of the 
defenders on the southwestern wall of the great trench; to press 
on under accurately directed artillery fire from guns concealed 
in the ravines of the brush-covered scarp and in the valleys of 
the backslope ; to force the crossings of rivers and marshes under 
this same accurate fire; to scale the steep wall of the Krusha- 
Beshik range where the brush largely restricts movement tc 
roads and paths accurately registered for artillery fire and 
further controlled by rifle and machine-gun fire from numberless 
positions hidden in the dense growth ; and to do all this without 
adequate artillery support, since the absence of concealed artillery 
positions on the open plain compelled the attacking forces to rely 
largely on guns hidden in the ravines dissecting the foothills 
and alluvail fans on the far northern side of the basin — this was 
indeed an almost impossible task. Once sufficient troops were 
available properly to man this natural fortress, the Krusha- 
Beshik wall and the Doiran-Struma moat were justly considered 
impregnable. 

Gyevgyeli Plateau 

Between Lake Doiran and the Gipsy Pass gorge of the Vardar 
River below Gyevgyeli stretches a broad upland usually referred 
to as a "plateau," upon the northeastern end of which, near Lake 
Doiran, rises a high ridge commanding both the plateau to the 
southwest and the lake basin to the northeast (Fig. 159). Pos- 
session of the Gyevgyeli plateau was essential to the Allies if 
they were to prevent an enemy advance down the Vardar and 
if their front along the Doiran-Struma moat was not to be out- 
flanked. On the other hand, the enemy saw in the Gyevgyeli 
plateau the one sector of the natural defenses of Saloniki where 
a successful attack would achieve a maximum of advantage, since 
to pass it would be to open up the way to an advance into the 
areas behind the main Allied front from Lake Doiran to the Gulf 



MALARIAL LOWLANDS 603 

of Orfano. Thus the plateau and its dominating ridge were in a 
sense the key to the outer defenses of Saloniki and witnessed some 
of the most bitter fighting on the Balkan front. 

Southward from the Gipsy Pass the Vardar River with its 
multiple channels, crossing the open plain, or campagna, of its 
last basin, further reinforced by Lake Ardjan and its bordering 
marshes on the east and by the outlying hills and parallel marshy 
streams to the west and farther downstream by the vast, marshy 
delta of the Vardar, continues the defensive barrier to the sea. The 
strength of the complete system of natural positions is too ob- 
vious to require further emphasis. Behind such barriers so great 
an army as was finally assembled here could withstand the best 
that the Kaiser and his allies could send against them. The enemy 
repeatedly attacked the outer wall in vain and camped for months 
along the Doiran-Struma trench with his own lines securely based 
on the impregnable wall of the Belashitsa Range and adjacent 
mountains. 

MALARIAL LOWLANDS 

In closing this account of the natural features of the Balkan 
Peninsula reference should be made to one common difficulty 
encountered by both combatants in this range-and-basin coun- 
try. The stagnant waters of the shallow lakes and marshes 
abounding on the basin floors, in a region where the temperature 
conditions are just right for the breeding of the malaria-bearing 
mosquito Anopheles, make southern Macedonia "one of the most 
malarious districts in the world." Captain Ogilvie reports, on the 
basis of data supplied by the Medical Directorate of the British 
War Office, that 70 per cent of the children in one village exam- 
ined in the Struma basin were found to have enlarged spleens. 
"The effect of the disease upon a large European army hitherto 
untouched by it was naturally very great . . . and was ex- 
ceedingly serious from a military point of view." In the years 
1916-1918 the total admissions to hospital for malaria in the 
British contingent alone numbered 161,559 an d in the last year 
represented 371.6 admissions for every 1,000 men engaged. 5 

6 Ogilvie, A Contribution to the Geography of Macedonia, p. 17. 



604 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

The present writer noted with interest the warning appearing 
on the menu cards of officers' messes, clubs, hotels, and restau- 
rants in different parts of the Balkans, often repeated in four 
or five languages: "Don't forget your quinine," and found the 
quinine bottle classed with the salt and pepper shakers as a 
necessary part of the table equipment. Since the malaria is 
much worse in the marshy lowlands than on the hills, the British 
maintained on their Struma front a "summer line" on the hills, to 
which they withdrew when the disease was at its worst in the 
warm season, and a "winter line" down on the plain, which they 
could occupy with impunity when the malaria-bearing mosqui- 
toes were hibernating. In summer this "winter line" in the plain 
would be held by relatively immune Greek troops. 



CHAPTER XVI 

MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF 
THE BALKANS 

The Battle of the Frontier 

The first blow in the World War was struck in the last days 
of July, 1914, when Austria launched an offensive along the 
entire Save-Danube line defending Serbia's northern frontier 
(Fig. 160). The Serbians destroyed the great bridge over the Save 
at Belgrade to make the barrier more secure and assailed with 
vigor every enemy column which endeavored to cross the river 
by boats or pontoon bridges. For nearly two weeks the Austrians 
made repeated attempts at seven different points to reach the 
south bank and at the same time attacked the western frontier 
along the line of the Drina near Losnitsa and Vishegrad. At 
Belgrade a crossing in the shelter of the ruined bridge was only 
temporarily successful. Farther east, at Semendria, an island 
served as the base for crossing on a pontoon bridge where the 
channel narrowed to 200 yards; but the invaders were first held 
in check, then thrown back in defeat. All attempts to cross at 
Obrenovats, southwest of Belgrade, failed. Far to the west Aus- 
trian troops succeeded in forcing a passage at Mitrovitsa and for 
some days held their ground in the marshes on the south side of 
the stream ; while the Drina was crossed at Vishegrad. Even here 
the success was partial and temporary, for Vishegrad was retaken 
by the Serbs on August 7, and on the 10th the Serbian govern- 
ment reported the expulsion of the last Austrian from Serb terri- 
tory. The first attempt to force the northern barrier had ended 

in failure. 

The Battle of the Yadar 

About the middle of August the Austrians made a second 
attempt to invade Serbia. Realizing the strength of the Save- 



606 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

Danube barrier, the Austrian commander delivered his main 
attack from the west against the line of the Drina. This river 
cuts transversely across the northwest-southeast parallel moun- 
tain ridges of the region, and by taking these natural defenses in 
the flank the invaders hoped to push along the lowlands between 
them and turn the strong northern positions from the southwest. 
Two of these ridges and the intervening depression constituted 
the keys to military control of this extreme northwestern corner 
of Serbia (Fig. 160). The depression is formed by the valley of 
the Yadar River, which heads near the upper Kolubara and flows 
northwestward to the Drina; and by the upper Kolubara valley 
eastward to beyond Valyevo. Northeast of this trough lies the 
high ridge bearing Mount Tser, which not only commands the 
Yadar valley south of it but likewise the valley of the Danube and 
the Machva marshes from its northern slopes. Southwest of the 
trough lies a range known in its southeastern part as Malyen 
Ridge, which in turn continues eastward to Mount Rudnik, due 
south of Belgrade. This long range dominates from the south 
both the Yadar and upper Kolubara valleys, including the im- 
portant Valyevo basin. 

If the Austrians could cross the Drina barrier near Losnitsa 
and push up the Yadar valley, sweeping the ridges on either side 
as they advanced, they might continue over the cross-divide into 
the upper Kolubara and capture the important Serbian military 
base of Valyevo. This would effectively turn the line of the Save 
and threaten Belgrade from the south. A simultaneous advance 
southward from Shabats against the Mount Tser ridge would 
facilitate the maneuver, and the junction of the Shabats and 
Losnitsa columns would clear the northwestern corner of Serbia 
of Serb troops. 

After a furious bombardment of the Save-Danube line superior 
Austrian forces effected crossings of the Save at Shabats and the 
Drina at Losnitsa. While this major operation was being carried 
out, strong demonstrations at other points were attempted. 
Columns seeking to cross at Belgrade were defeated. In the 
gorge of the Iron Gate at Orsova, where the swift current and 



BATTLE OF THE YADAR 



607 



steep walls made the attempt peculiarly hazardous, it is reported 
that three Austrian regiments were destroyed while trying to 
cross by a pontoon bridge. Renewed attempts to cross at Bel- 
grade and Semendria were frustrated. Belgrade stood on the 
point of a peninsula projecting into Hungarian territory and was 




Fig. 160 — Map of northwestern Serbia, showing the terrain on which were fought 
the Battles of the Yadar and of Mount Rudnik. 

subject to attack from three sides. It was the capital of Serbia, 
and its capture was urgently desired for political as well as 
strategic reasons. That this important outpost at the very door 
of the enemy's country, attacked by superior numbers and bom- 
barded by superior artillery, should have resisted capture for four 
months, is a striking proof of the defensive value of such barriers 
as the Save and Danube Rivers. 

Meanwhile the main Austrian forces were pushing southeast- 
ward up the Yadar valley, while the Shabats column was slowly 



608 BATTLEFIELD OF. THE BALKANS 

driving the Serbian right wing in this sector back against the 
slopes of the Mount Tser ridge. But the task was a heavy one, 
and the strong Serbian positions on Mount Tser were causing the 
Austrians no end of trouble. By August 20 they had advanced 
nearly to the head of the Yadar, but, as their progress along the 
difficult ridge position was much slower, the troops in the valley 
found themselves taken in the rear by Serbian fire from the 
heights. The intended junction of the Shabats and Losnitsa 
columns had not been able to take place, and the situation was 
becoming critical. Supported by their solid hold upon Mount 
Tser, the Serbian armies, now reinforced, attacked down the 
slopes and down the valley, overthrew the Austrian center and 
drove it back across the Drina with heavy losses. Fleeing 
remnants of the invading forces overcrowded the few bridges 
spanning the unfordable stream, and large numbers perished by 
drowning. By August 24 the Shabats column was driven back 
over the Save. Of the 200,000 Austrians who took part in the 
Battle of Mount Tser, or the Battle of the Yadar, as the action is 
called, nearly one fourth failed to return to Austrian soil. A 
second attack against the natural defenses of northern Serbia 
had proved a costly failure. 

The Battle of Mount Rudnik 
The victorious Serbs now pushed across the Danube to capture 
Semlin, and invaded Bosnia. But the Austrians had not yet 
given up the idea of chastising Serbia and taking from her control 
the vital arteries of the Balkans, and the Serbs were now com- 
pelled to fall back on their natural defenses to meet a third and 
still more powerful Austrian offensive. Again the line of the 
Drina was heavily attacked in the second week of September, 
while simultaneously a strong offensive developed against the 
Save-Danube front. The enemy was quickly halted along the 
line of the Save, and an Austrian army which succeeded in getting 
a foothold on the southern bank of the Danube east of Belgrade 
was overwhelmed and driven back in disorder. 

On the west, however, the smaller Drina was successfully 



BATTLE OF MOUNT RUDNIK 609 

passed on a wide front, crossings being effected at Losnitsa and 
at a number of other points between the junction with the Save 
on the north and Vishegrad far to the south. Slowly and method- 
ically the new advance began, parallel to the grain of the country. 
Strong enemy forces drove the defenders back along the ridges 
and pushed up the Yadar and other parallel valleys. By the 
middle of November the Austrians had crossed the minor divide 
at the head of the Yadar, pushed into the upper Kolubara depres- 
sion, and captured Valyevo. Four days later they had pushed 
eastward along Malyen Ridge well toward Mount Rudnik, and 
farther north had forced the Serbian armies to take refuge behind 
the lower Kolubara valley. The Serbian commander, unable to 
defend both the northern and western fronts with a small army in- 
sufficiently supplied with munitions, ordered his forces to fall back 
on the strong mountain mass which on the west defended the 
main Morava valley and which was dominated by Mount Rud- 
nik. His right wing now rested on the Danube east of Belgrade, 
and his left blocked the route leading from Uzhitse eastward down 
the Western Morava valley to the Morava-Vardar corridor. This 
alignment of the Serbian forces involved the evacuation of Bel- 
grade, which the Austrians occupied December 2. An enemy push 
down the Western Morava would, however, be still more serious, 
for it would at a single blow cut the vital railway artery of Serbia 
and outflank the main Serbian armies in the north, besides depriv- 
ing them of the great industrial center and chief Serbian arsenal 
at Kraguyevats. 

Then came the stroke which startled the world. Launching an 
offensive from the solid buttress of Mount Rudnik and sweeping 
down the slopes of Malyen Ridge, the Serbian veterans over- 
whelmed two Austrian corps with disaster. Valyevo was recap- 
tured, Uzhitse cleared of the enemy, and the beaten Austrians 
once more driven across the Drina in disorder. Belgrade was re- 
occupied by Serbian forces December 15, and the badly chas- 
tised Austrian armies, weakened by over 100,000 casualties, 
executed a humiliating retreat, while their commander was 
officially disgraced for the crime of failure. For the third time the 



610 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

natural defenses of northern Serbia, heroically defended, had 
defied the attempted Austrian invasion. 

It was now evident that Austria, with many of her troops 
engaged on the Russian front, could not assemble forces compe- 
tent to dislodge the Serbians from their favorable defensive 
positions. Comparative quiet ensued on this front for many 
months, a quiet which might indeed have been broken earlier 
had not Italy, then neutral, served notice on Austria that a dis- 
turbance of the status quo in the Balkans before suitable "com- 
pensations" had been given to Italy could not be tolerated. By 
early fall of 1915 conditions had changed. Italy's entrance into 
the war made it unnecessary for Austria longer to consider her 
feelings. The great Russian retreat made it possible to withdraw 
Austrian troops from that front for service against Serbia. At 
the same time the need of controlling the Morava-Vardar trench 
was increasing. The Central Powers were besieged by the Allies, 
and an outlet to neutral lands and to the sea was a pressing neces- 
sity. The Turks needed munitions and the Central Powers 
needed food. A successful campaign was also required to wipe 
out the disgrace of past defeats at Serbian hands and to impress 
wavering neutrals with Teutonic military prowess. Hence was 
initiated the diplomatic campaign already described, which 
culminated in the peaceable conquest of the Maritsa valley and 
the accession of the Bulgarian armies to the ranks of the Central 
Powers. Conditions were now ripe for a combined Teuton- 
Bulgar campaign designed to conquer the entire Morava-Vardar 

trench. 

The Conquest of Serbia 

Early October, 1915, found some 300,000 Germans and Aus- 
trians massed on the Save-Danube line, while a larger number of 
Bulgars were concentrating in the mountains along the eastern 
border. The main Serbian army stood behind the northern de- 
fensive line to meet the Austro-German attack, smaller forces 
alone being detailed for operations on the east. A Bulgarian 
offensive was to be met by the Greek army acting in concert with 
an Anglo-French expeditionary force. At the last moment the 



CONQUEST OF SERBIA 611 

whole scheme of Serbian defense was shattered by the treachery 
of King Constantine, who not only repudiated Greece's treaty 
with Serbia and refused the promised support of his army but 
gave secret assurances to the Bulgarian government that if its 
armies attacked the Serbians their flank would be secure from 
any interference by the Greeks. The entire length of the Morava- 
Vardar trench was thus thrown open to attacks from the east 
while the main Serb armies were trying to protect the northern 
entrance. 

On October 6 the Austro-German assault was launched. 
Heavy artillery fire, which the Serbians could not match, pro- 
tected the columns attempting to force a passage across the river 
barrier. Nevertheless, the crossing was a costly undertaking. 
Many of the invaders were driven back to the northern bank or 
caught on the southern side and annihilated, before large forces 
after two or three days' hard fighting securely established them- 
selves on the southern bank. It is interesting to note that the 
principal crossings were effected above Belgrade, below Belgrade, 
at Semendria, Ram, and Gradishte — all five points close to 
the northern entrance of the Morava valley, all of them except 
the last located at the ends of Hungarian railways capable of 
bringing supplies directly to the points of crossing, and all of 
them near sand-bar islands in the river which were utilized to 
good advantage in several and possibly in all cases. There also 
was heavy cannonading at Orsova, the only other railhead on the 
Danube frontier; but no crossing of the difficult gorge near the 
Iron Gate seems to have been made until later, possibly after 
threat of envelopment caused withdrawal of the main body of 
defenders from the northeastern corner of Serbia. When the 
crossing was effected here it was with the aid of an island in the 
river below Orsova. 

After the Danube barrier had been forced, the southward pro- 
gress of the Teutonic armies was remarkably slow. For six weeks 
the average rate of advance was about one mile a day. Despite 
their enormous superiority in big guns, it cost the Austro-Ger- 
mans much time and the loss of many men to drive the Serbs 



612 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

from successive defensive positions in the hills. More than two 
weeks elapsed before the Danube was freed from the Serbian 
menace, and thus rendered available for boat transport of muni- 
tions to Bulgaria and Turkey. Austrian forces crossing the Drina 
near Vishegrad, the only rail end on the northwestern frontier, 
found themselves unable to dislodge the Serbs from their moun- 
tain fastnesses and after ten days' fighting had made no progress 
toward the head of the Western Morava valley. 

Meanwhile Bulgaria declared war on Serbia, and Bulgarian 
armies poured through the gaps in the eastern mountain barrier 
and descended tributary valleys to the Morava-Vardar trench. 
One column advanced down the Vlasina valley to the Leskovats 
basin, another reached Kumanovo and Skoplye (Uskiib) by the 
Kriva depression, while a third descended the Bregalnitsa to 
Veles (p. 591). Vranye, Kumanovo, Skoplye, and Veles, defended 
by inadequate Serbian forces, were captured within less than two 
weeks, and the vital artery of Serbia was cut in four places. Few 
could doubt that these wounds would prove fatal. 

Farther north one Bulgarian army was attacking the fortifica- 
tions of Pirot in order to open a way down the Nishava valley to 
Nish, while other forces had captured Zayechar and were trying 
to advance along the upper Timok branches to reach the Morava 
trench above and below Nish. Progress in this field was much 
slower than farther south, however, and the Serbs maintained 
themselves in the mountainous northeastern corner of their 
country until the fall of Pirot and Nish developed the danger that 
Bulgarians pushing north down the Morava, and Austro-Germans 
advancing up the valley to meet them, might close the neck of the 
salient northeast of the trench and capture the forces fighting 
there. Under pressure of this threat the Serbs withdrew to the 
southwest; and about November 13, or more than a month after 
the campaign opened, the entire Morava-Maritsa trench was in 
the hands of the Central Powers, and the reconstruction of the 
Orient railway could be prosecuted. The Morava-Vardar trench 
as far south as Veles was also in their control, and there remained 
only the problem of rendering the tenure of both trenches secure 



CONQUEST OF SERBIA 613 

by pushing the Serbian and Franco-British forces west to the 
Adriatic and south to the Aegean. 

The disastrous results of the Bulgarian occupation of the 
Morava-Vardar trench now began to be more manifest. Muni- 
tions and other supplies for the Serbian armies in the north were 
becoming exhausted, and the one artery along which they could 
freely flow had been severed. The quantities which could reach 
the Serbian front over rough mountain trails were utterly inade- 
quate. Reinforcements were sadly needed; but the one railway 
leading north from the Anglo-French base at Saloniki followed 
the Morava-Vardar trench and so was in the hands of the enemy, 
while the rough mule paths over the western mountain barrier 
could bring neither troops nor supplies from Italy. Had the broad 
belt of mountain and karst intervened between the Morava- 
Vardar trench and the Bulgarian frontier, and had the more open 
valleys of the east but led westward to the Adriatic, the history 
of the Balkan campaign might have been very different. 

It was supposed that when the Austro-German forces reached 
the higher mountainous region bordering the Western Morava 
valley, and it became difficult, if not impossible, to bring up their 
heavy guns, the rate of advance would become even slower than 
before. The fact that the advance was actually accelerated has 
been interpreted to mean that the failure of Serbian supplies 
weakened the defense more than the unfavorable local topog- 
raphy injured the plans of the offensive. The Teutons moved 
rapidly across the Western Morava, and the Serbian army took 
up a position running eastward along the mountain crests south 
of the valley, then southward along the ridge west of the Morava- 
Vardar trench, and southwestward across the Kachanik gorge. 
It will immediately appear that the Kachanik position was the 
strategic key to this entire battle front. In the rear of the Ser- 
bian armies, which were now facing north and east, runs the 
straight subsidiary trench formed by the Lepenitsa valley, 
Kosovo Polye, and the Ibar valley. The gateway to this trench 
is the narrow Kachanik gorge. A railway from Skoplye runs 
through the gorge to Mitrovitsa at the northern end of the 



614 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

Kosovo Polye, thereby more than doubling the military value of 
the depression. If the Bulgarian forces already in possession of 
Skoplye should succeed in breaking through the Kachanik gorge 
into the plain of Kosovo, they could strike north and east against 
the rear of the Serbian armies and convert retreat into disaster. 
Little wonder, then, that the "Kachanik Pass" figured so promi- 
nently in the war despatches during this period. 

But if Kachanik was the key to the Serbian position, Veles 
was the key to Kachanik. Should the Anglo-French troops 
coming up the Vardar from Saloniki capture Veles and debouch 
into the triangular lowland to the north, they would take in the 
rear the Bulgarian army trying to break through the Kachanik 
position. It would not be necessary for the Anglo-French force 
to enter the Kachanik gorge; the mere threat of enclosing the 
Bulgarians in the valley between the Serbs up at Kachanik and 
their allies down at the valley mouth would be sufficient to bring 
the Bulgars out of the trap in order to fight on the lowland, 
where, if defeated, they could retire northeastward into a region 
fully under their control. The threat would become imminent 
the moment Veles fell to the Allies. Such were the topographic 
relations responsible for the rather striking fact that an Anglo- 
French attack upon Veles relieved the pressure upon Serbian 
forces in the mountains far to the north. 

The strategic value of Veles was fully appreciated by the 
Bulgarian commanders, and heavy reinforcements were evidently 
poured into the Vardar trench at that point. All efforts of the 
Allied armies failed to achieve their purpose; Veles remained in 
Bulgarian hands, and Bulgarian attacks on the poorly equipped 
Serbs defending Kachanik gorge proceeded without serious 
interruption. When it became apparent that the Kachanik 
position could not long be held, the Serbian armies at the north 
and east fell back toward the Ipek basin, while those farther 
south retired on the Monastir basin. All danger to the Teutonic 
occupation of the Morava-Vardar trench north of Veles was thus 
removed, and the remainder of the campaign consisted in squeez- 
ing the remnants of the shattered Serb forces and their Montene- 



CONQUEST OF SERBIA 615 

grin allies westward through Albania and southward through 
Montenegro to the sea; and in driving the Anglo-French army 
and the Serbs near Monastir back into Greece. The first of these 
movements progressed with exceeding slowness because of the 
difficult character of the country; and the terrors of the Serbian 
retreat over rugged mule paths and through wild mountain 
gorges in the cold and snow of winter can scarcely be imagined. 
But from the standpoint of military geography the second move- 
ment alone merits special consideration. 

The Serbian forces retreating southward toward Monastir 
made a heroic stand on the mountain range separating the Vardar 
valley from the Monastir basin. At Babuna Pass, a sag in the 
crest crossed by a wagon road, the remnants of King Peter's 
armies held overwhelmingly superior forces of the enemy at bay 
for more than a week. But the unhappy Serbs, betrayed by 
Constantine and denied effective aid from other quarters be- 
cause of the blundering and bungling of their powerful Allies, 
were doomed to expulsion from even this corner of their coun- 
try. The continuous pressure of enemy attacks became unsup- 
por table, the pass was abandoned, and early in December the 
Bulgarians were pouring southward over the plain of the broad 
basin to capture Monastir. 

When the French and British pushed up the Vardar valley to- 
ward Veles they seized as their base for a great armed camp the 
triangle of mountainous ground (Fig. 165) lying between the 
Vardar River and one of its tributaries known as the Cherna. 
The position had certain topographic advantages which enabled 
it to be held for a long time in the face of superior forces ; but suf- 
fered from one serious disadvantage which ultimately compelled 
its evacuation. Both the mountain ridges and the river trenches 
afforded admirable natural defenses. The gorge of the Cherna is 
steep-sided and the stream unfordable. The most important 
bridge, a few miles above the river's mouth, was destroyed by 
the French after they had failed in an effort to move westward 
and join the Serbs, who were then fighting at Babuna Pass to 
prevent the Bulgars from getting into the Monastir basin. For 



616 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

defensive purposes the larger Vardar River, protecting the eastern 
side of the triangle, possessed much tactical value, because it is 
both wide and unfordable and its valley is steep-sided — in one 
place a veritable gorge. 

But it is in the Vardar valley, however, that the chief disadvan- 
tages of the situation become apparent. All munitions and other 
supplies, as well as all reinforcements for the armed camp had to 
come from Saloniki over the single-track railway running up the 
Vardar trench. The railway lies close to the river all the way and 
for several miles is actually on its eastern bank, or outside the tri- 
angle. Its position was thus dangerously vulnerable, and its 
vulnerability was peculiarly aggravated by the fact that in the 
Demir Kapu gorge, the Iron Gate of the Vardar, the line is 
squeezed in between the base of high cliffs and the swiftly flowing 
river, crosses the river on a bridge at one point, and passes 
through a tunnel at another. If the Bulgarians, attacking the 
sides of the triangle, should destroy the bridge, tunnel, or narrow 
roadbed in the gorge, the forces within the triangle would be 
caught in a trap. Hence it was that when the dispersal of the 
Serb armies to the northwest had so far progressed as to free 
additional Austro-German and Bulgarian troops for action 
against the Allied armies at the south, the evacuation of the 
triangle was considered imperative. 

It has been estimated that at this time the forces of the Central 
Powers in the south probably outnumbered those of the Allies 
in the proportion of three to one, or even four to one. That the 
triangle should have been held so long in the face of greatly 
superior numbers bears eloquent testimony to the strength of the 
natural topographic barriers formed by the Cherna and Vardar 
Rivers, as well as to the efficiency of the troops which were 
responsible for its defense. The triangle was a prominent salient 
projecting far beyond the general Allied front; it possessed a 
vulnerable point, the Demir Kapu gorge, on the eastern side of the 
salient; and it was the center of a line the two wings of which were 
less effectively protected by natural barriers and all of which was 
inadequately supplied with lines of communication. 



MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN OF 1916 617 

Early in December the withdrawal from this dangerous situa- 
tion began. The French and British retired from the triangle and 
blocked the gorge against pursuit by blowing up the tunnel and 
bridge. The British farther east were forced back toward the 
south by a series of furious Bulgarian assaults, and the Serbs on 
the west were likewise compelled to withdraw southward into 
Greek territory. During this same month General de Castelnau, 
whose skillful use of topographic barriers in other fields has 
already been detailed, was sent to inspect the Saloniki region. 
Presumably he reported favorably on the obvious strength of the 
military obstacles which we have described somewhat fully in 
the preceding chapter; but whether as a result of his inspection, 
or independently of it, the remarkable natural defenses of the 
parallel ranges and basins were gradually organized into an im- 
pregnable entrenched camp. 

The Macedonian Campaign of 191 6 

A series of local combats, rising in cases to the dimensions of 
battles of some importance, marked the period of readjustment 
that followed the conquest of Serbia and preceded the almost 
complete calm which reigned on this front from the late fall of 
1916 till the middle of September, 1918. Late in July, 1916, 
the Serbian army, reconstituted in exile on the island of Corfu 
and transported to the Macedonian front some weeks before, 
launched a heavy attack on the strong Nidje mountain mass, 
constituting the base of the famous triangle between the Vardar 
and Cherna Rivers (Fig. 165). But this offensive did not seri- 
ously shake the Bulgarian front, solidly based on an extremely 
difficult terrain. The French captured some ground in the 
western end of the great Doiran-Struma moat (Fig. 159), but 
stopped short before the formidable wall of the Belashitsa Range. 
A serious menace developed when the Bulgarian army, after 
having had the fortress guarding Rupel Pass treasonably de- 
livered into their hands by order of the faithless Constantine, 
prepared to attack both wings of the Allies in an attempt to 
envelop their whole front. Pushing southward over the open 



618 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

floor of the broad Monastir basin (Fig. 158) the enemy forced 
the Allied left wing back on the mountain range separating this 
lowland from the Ostrovo basin next to the east, through which 
latter run the main road and railway from Fiorina to Saloniki. 
On this natural barrier, which is continued northeastward by the 
high Kaimakchalan massif and the Nidje Mountains (Fig. 165), 
the turning movement on the west was halted. On the Allied right 
the Bulgars occupied the Kavala region, delivered up by Greek 
troops which went over to Germany, and advanced against the 
Lake Ahinos sector of the Struma trough, where they were 
finally checked by British forces solidly established on the outer 
wall of the entrenched camp of Saloniki. Supported by strong 
natural positions, General Sarrail launched a series of counter- 
blows which effectively blocked the Teuton-Bulgar design at 
envelopment, although gaining little ground for the Allies. 

On September 12, however, the Allies began a vigorous assault 
designed to restore the situation, particularly on their left flank, 
by recovering the important Monastir basin. The whole front 
moved forward to the attack, from the Ostrovo basin to the Gulf 
of Orfano ; but the chief advance soon developed on the left. Here 
Serbian troops pushing northwestward from the Ostrovo region 
drove the enemy across minor ridges and valleys to the main 
ridge bordering on the southeast the great elbow of the Cherna, 
and then attacked the high Kaimakchalan massif buttressing this 
ridge and forming a solid support for the Bulgar line for some 
miles beyond. Meanwhile French and Russian forces on the left 
of the Serbs pushed across the southern end of the Monastir 
basin, to recapture Fiorina in the mouth of a canyon debouching 
from the steep and straight western mountain wall. 

After a terrific struggle lasting many days, the Bulgarians were 
hurled from their mountain stronghold of Kaimakchalan (Fig. 
165) on September 30 by the unconquerable Serbs. There now 
began a slow, bitter, and bloody advance northward through the 
mountain ranges bordering the Monastir basin on either side 
(Figs. 158 and 164),, the French attacking on the west, the Serbs 
on the east. To advance northward through the plain was prac- 



LOCAL COMBATS 619 

tically impossible, for while the streams crossing it flowed on the 
surface and often contained little or no water, thus offering such 
poor defensive positions that the Bulgars made little use of them, 
the exceptional flatness and barrenness of the plain deprived the 
attackers of any cover, and the enemy on the heights could from 
their dominating positions take the attacking columns in flank 
and rear. But if progress could be made on the mountains, then 
the lines in the plain, taken in the rear by fire accurately directed 
from the heights, must be abandoned. Step by step the im- 
mensely difficult terrain was conquered, and stage by stage the 
enemy in the plain fell back toward the north. Yet progress was 
slow, and it was not until November 19 that the Allies re-entered 
Monastir. By this time the power of the offensive had been so 
worn down by the almost superhuman task that the strong enemy 
lines on the hills immediately northwest of the town could not be 
broken. The season was, moreover, far advanced, and the cam- 
paign of 1916 drew to its close. Nearly two years later the visitor 
to Monastir could still stand in one of the towers rising well above 
the houses and watch the Allies' shells bursting along the Bulgar 
lines just above him, or run the gauntlet of Bulgar shells dropped 
in the town and on the roads leading southward over the basin 
plain. 

Local Combats 

In the first year of the war Italy had landed an expeditionary 
force at the port of Valona in southern Albania and had gradu- 
ally converted the surrounding country into an entrenched camp 
of considerable strength. The topography of the region lent itself 
admirably to this purpose. Protected on the south and west by the 
high limestone ridge of Karaburun, terminating in Saseno Island 
(Fig. 151), from which big guns can sweep the sea approaches and 
guard the entrance, and on the north by small islands tied to the 
mainland by low beaches, the harbor itself could be made reason- 
ably secure from attack by water. By land the only approach 
from the south is from the Chimara basin over a steep limestone 
mountain wall (Fig. 153) which was passable by difficult mule 
path alone until the Italian army engineers built a magnificent 



620 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

auto road, zigzagging dizzily up the 2,000-foot scarp. Here the 
terrain offered excellent opportunity to render the pass impreg- 
nable. On the east a mountain wall (Fig. 161), then the deep 
trench of the Sushitsa branch of the Voyussa, another mountain 
range, and finally the greater trench of the Voyussa itself provide 
a succession of excellent natural defenses. An attack from the 
north would first have to pass the trench and marshy plain of the 
lower Semeni River, overcome the Malakastra ridge (Fig. 162), 
then cross the broad trench of the lower Voyussa valley, after 
which the north-south Sushitsa trench and its bordering ranges 
must be taken in the flank and conquered. 

After the conquest of Serbia and the rapid overwhelming 
of the little Montenegrin army, Austrian forces pushed south- 
ward through Albania, while the Italians evacuated Durazzo 
and withdrew within the strong entrenched camp of Valona. 
After possessing themselves of the strong Malakastra position 
the Austrians appear to have settled down to contain the Italians 
within their natural fortress, without seriously attempting the 
difficult task of dislodging them from the strong terrain south of 
the Voyussa. The southern side of the river in this part of its 
course is the higher (Fig. 163) and dominates the northern bank, 
where the Italians established bridgehead defenses. From these, 
machine guns could sweep the valley across which any advance 
from the Malakastra positions must come. Inasmuch as the sur- 
face from the river to the foot of the ridge is as flat as a floor, very 
broad, and for the most part devoid of any covering larger than 
grass, a grazing fire could sweep attacking columns with murder- 
ous effect for a time sufficiently long to assure their annihilation. 
Both the Malakastra ridge and the hills south of the Voyussa sup- 
porting the Italian line are composed of a partially hardened 
argillaceous sand which cuts like cheese, stands fairly well, and 
is admirably adapted to the excavation of trenches and dugouts. 

For more than two years the Italians held the Voyussa line 
without suffering serious interference from the Austrians. Then 
by a brisk action early in July, 1918, General Ferrero captured 
the Malakastra ridge and drove the enemy well back over the 



LOCAL COMBATS 



621 



level plain of the Semeni farther north. Unfortunately for the 
Austrians the ridge does not reach westward to the sea. In 
winter the passage around the western end is blocked by marshes, 
but in summer these become sufficiently dry and hard to permit 
the passage of cavalry. Taking advantage of this fact the Italians 
launched a frontal attack on the main ridge positions, while 




Fig. 161 —Italian military road leading up to the pass giving access into the 
Chimara basin (see Fig. IS3). The mountains shown here form the natural defenses 
of the Valona region on the east and south. 



cavalry swept around through the plain, passed west of the ridge, 
and captured part of the Semeni plain on the north. Finding 
themselves attacked in the rear, the Austrians abandoned the 
whole ridge and fled precipitately northward. So sudden was their 
flight that six Austrian airplanes, returning from a scouting expe- 
dition, landed on their home field to find themselves in the Italian 
lims. The Italian front was now reinforced with another strong 
position, but in a later attack the Austrians recovered part of the 
important ground they had lost in the Battle of Malakastra Ridge. 



622 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 




>> « 

> s 



•d < 






,§ 



LOCAL COMBATS 623 

Among the local struggles on the Balkan front in 19 17 and 1918 
should be noted a series of combats on the important Gyevgyeli 
plateau sector, between Lake Doiran and the Vardar (Fig. 159). 
Here the Bulgars held most of the high ridge west of the lake, 
and so commanded the British positions on the plateau farther 
west. In April and May the British troops made determined 
efforts to drive the Bulgars from the dominating height. Some 
ground was gained, but from the ravines descending the flanks of 
the ridge the enemy met every advance with a murderous fire 
which brought the operation to a halt. In the following spring, 
and again during the great Battle of Moglenitsa in September, 
1918, the British assailed the Bulgarians' natural stronghold with 
little success, until the final collapse of the Bulgarian center 
opened the way to a general advance northward. 

Other local combats of greater or lesser importance interrupted 
only to a limited degree the general calm which characterized 
the Balkan theater of war for many long months before the final 
Allied offensive in September, 191 8. The battle front had be- 
come stabilized on a line stretching across one of the narrowest 
parts of the Balkan Peninsula. From the Adriatic Sea it followed 
the strong Voyussa valley-Malakastra ridge positions, then 
looped transversely across the wild, rugged limestone ranges and 
deep gorges of south-central Albania to reach the lake-filled 
Okhrida and Presba basins. From the northern part of Presba 
Lake the front crossed the high range west of the Monastir basin, 
traversed the level floor of that lowland just north of the town of 
Monastir, and scaled the high mountain wall lying next east, in 
the great bend of the Cherna River (Fig. 164). East of the 
Cherna, at the base of the mountainous triangle between it and 
the Vardar, the line crossed the Nidje massif (Fig. 165), where the 
Bulgarian center was based on the formidable wooded heights of 
Mount Sokol and Mount Dobropolye, after Kaimakchalan (pre- 
viously captured by the Serbs) the strongest points on this part 
of the enemy front. 

From the Cherna-Vardar triangle the line crossed the Gipsy 
Pass gorge to the Gyevgyeli plateau and followed the Doiran- 



624 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

Struma basin to the sea. Throughout this latter sector the 
opposing armies faced each other across the vast expanse of the 
broad moat, each combatant defied by the impregnable natural 
barriers which faced him. On the side of the Allies the southern 
bank of the Struma River, the base of the Krusha-Beshik scarp, 
the steep slope itself, and the crest were strongly organized with 
trenches, redoubts, and other field works defended by wire 
entanglements which for intricacy of pattern and skillful adapta- 
tion to the terrain (they were so disposed as to confuse the 
assailants and shepherd them unwittingly into death traps swept 
by machine guns), as well as for height, in places exceeded any- 
thing observed by the writer on other fronts. The absence of con- 
cealed gun positions on the plain, by keeping the artillery at 
a great distance, and the scarcity of big guns on both sides made 
it impossible for either combatant to concentrate a heavy and 
accurate fire on the trenches of the other. As a consequence the 
main defensive positions were usually on the slopes toward the 
enemy, not on the counter slopes as was so often the case in the 
quite different terrain of the French front; although from the 
Lahana saddle westward to Lake Ardjan the British prepared an 
important secondary defense line on the backslope of the Krusha 
Balkan. On the steep fracture face of the Belashitsa Range, north 
of the broad Struma moat, the first main position of the Bulgar 
front lay along the base of the scarp, another, easily distinguish- 
able with field glasses, some distance up the slope, and a third, ap- 
parently less continuous, along the crest. This remarkably steep 
scarp, which stared the British in the face for so many dreary 
months, was commonly described by the British soldier, with repre- 
hensible irreverence but commendable accuracy, as "a hell of a 
position." From the Adriatic to the Aegean the front was nowhere 
else so nearly impregnable on both sides as along the Struma moat. 

The Battle of Moglenitsa 

The battle front across the comparatively narrow portion of 
the Balkan Peninsula described in the preceding paragraphs was a 
key position of the utmost importance. So long as the Allies were 



BATTLE OF MOGLENITSA 



625 



weaker than their opponents, there was always the danger that 
a Teuton-Bulgar attack might break the Allied center between 
the entrenched camps of Saloniki and Valona, overrun Old 
Greece, precipitate her withdrawal from her half-hearted alliance 
with the Entente Powers, and open the Greek coast to German 




Fig. 163 — The Voyussa River north of Valona, showing the steeper southern 
bank, along which the Italians long had their front, and the more gently sloping 
northern bank, where they held bridgehead positions. Part of the inner defenses 
protecting the temporary bridge are shown in the right foreground. 



submarines — a possible catastrophe of the first magnitude to the 
Allied cause. On the other hand, when the Allies waxed stronger 
the Teuton-Bulgar line was the only dam which prevented the 
Allied flood from pouring northward along the Morava-Vardar 
corridor and subsidiary basin routes to debouch into the Hun- 
garian plain behind the Austrian armies facing the Italians 
along the Piave-Trentino front. If this dam broke, irreparable 
disaster must follow. As we have seen on an earlier page, 
the geographic form of the peninsula, broad at the north and 
narrowing toward the south, would impose on the Austrians 



626 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 



~ 1 




BATTLE OF MOGLENITSA 627 

the tremendous task of building a new dam in the north several 
times longer than the first, in case the southern one were broken. 
At this stage of the struggle such a task was utterly beyond 
the power of Austria. Practically the whole strength of her 
rapidly decaying army had to be concentrated on the Italian 
front, and only a few battalions were left to aid the Bulgarians by 
holding a short sector in Albania. Germany, suffering one dis- 
aster after another on the western front, could do little toward 
building up a new line in the southeast; like Austria she had with- 
drawn her divisions from the Balkans and was herself asking 
Austria for help in the west. Such troops as she might spare in a 
last desperate effort to hold Bulgaria in line would merely advance 
the date of German defeat on the western front. Bulgaria faced 
the Allied Armies of the Orient practically alone; and it was a 
geographic certainty that if the Bulgarians could be eliminated 
from the struggle, the form of the country would make the estab- 
lishment of a new southern front impossible. Austrian collapse 
must follow, swift and sure. And with Austria-Hungary thrown 
open to the Allies, the German armies would be menaced in the 
rear. The Bulgarian battle line was indeed a wall beyond which 
lay Allied victory. Soon after Hindenburg should hear of its 
rupture, he would write Chancellor Max that the last hope of 
imposing peace on the Allies had vanished. 

That critical wall was becoming alarmingly weak. "Bulgaria 
was rotting from within. The common people had had enough of 
the war; they were hungry, weary, and restless. King Ferdinand 
was growing unpopular. German influence was decreasing in 
proportion as the divisions lent for the victories of 1915 and 1916 
decreased. And the army itself, worn out by war, by insufficient 
food, and by long inaction, would probably be unable to resist an 
unexpected and sweeping attack. Perhaps the new government of 
Premier Malinoff , which in June replaced the pro-German minis- 
try of Radoslavoff at Sofia, was quite willing, before intrusting 
itself to the good-will of the Entente, that such an attack should 
come. A defeat would justify a separate and much desired peace." 1 

1 C. J. H. Hayes: A Brief History of the Great War, New York, 1920, p. 343- 



628 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

At the same time the Allied flood which was soon to beat 
against that wall was waxing ever more formidable. The weak 
expeditionary force of heterogeneous units had grown into a 
large army trained by long association to operate more nearly as 
a single machine. The Grecian menace which hampered Sarrail 
had been greatly reduced, and that general had been succeeded 
by the resourceful Guillaumat, who proposed and planned a 
vast operation against the Bulgar front. Guillaumat in turn 
was succeeded by the energetic Franchet d'Esperey, who exe- 
cuted the great offensive. 

It was decided to rupture the Bulgarian front by an attack 
against its center. This would permit the attacking forces, upon 
bursting through, to cut the chief communications of the Bul- 
garian right wing in the Monastir region, leading northward out 
of the basin, as well as the vital railway artery through the Mo- 
rava-Vardar corridor, supplying that part of the Bulgarian left 
wing in the Vardar sector. Completely isolated from each other 
and with the enemy on their supply lines far in the rear, both 
wings would quickly share the disaster suffered by the center. 

The Bulgarian center was, as previously noted, solidly estab- 
lished, along the mountainous base of the Cherna-Vardar tri- 
angle, on the crest and southern slopes of the high Nidje Moun- 
tains, which dominate the Moglenitsa basin from the northwest 
(Fig. 165). This crest, followed by the Serbo-Greek frontier, 
trends from southwest to northeast, from the Kaimakchalan 
massif on the southwest past the peaks of Sokol, Dobropolye, 
Kravitsa, Vetrenik, Koziak, and Blatets, to the Kechikaya massif 
on the northeast. Despite its oblique trend, the crest gives off 
a number of ridge spurs which extend approximately east or west 
from several of the peaks mentioned and which form excellent suc- 
cessive lines of defense against an attack from the south. Thus it 
happened that after the capture of the Kaimakchalan massif by 
the Serbs, the Bulgarian first line passed through Mounts Sokol 
and Dobropolye, while their second line reached the crest at 
Mount Koziak, which formed its principal buttress. A third line 
was based in part on east-west ridges north of Mount Koziak. 



BATTLE OF MOGLENITSA 



629 



Another interesting feature of the terrain consists of several 
important ridges which extend northward from the oblique 
crest, to reach the river trenches bounding the famous triangle. 
One of these reaches north from Mount Koziak direct to the 
Cherna gorge near the middle of the triangle's western side. A 




tff'SokoU N M* Dobropolye 



'M'Kaintaktrtialarf 



Fig. 165 — Map of the Moglenitsa basin and the mountainous triangle between 
the Cherna and Vardar Rivers, along the Serbo-Greek frontier. 



second, known as the Marianska range, runs northeast from the 
Kechikaya massif to overlook the Demir Kapu gorge of the Var- 
dar, about the middle of the triangle's eastern side. Between 
these two another ridge leads from near Mount Blatets straight 
to the apex of the triangle, at the river junction. If the Bulgarian 
front on the main oblique crest was broken, these ridges would 
form highland pathways along which the victors might advance 
to the bounding river gorges, at the same time clearing the 
triangle of enemy troops by fire directed into the valleys 



630 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

and upon the lower ridges from advantageous positions on 
the heights. 

The initial attack would be the most difficult. From the lofty 
Sokol and the rocky peak of the Dobropolye the Bulgarians 
dominated the whole surrounding country. Roads in the exposed 
Moglenitsa basin and on the slopes of the range were under 
accurate observation and fire, and could be used only at night. It 
was a heavy task, given the poor communications of the region, 
secretly to assemble the stores of munitions and other supplies 
necessary for a crushing blow. Auto-camions, ox carts, and mule 
trains carried on the laborious work week after week, toiling up 
the steep slopes along zigzag roads and bridle paths by night, 
resting concealed by day. When all else was prepared the troops 
selected for the assault were moved up, and the artillery prepara- 
tion began. 

On September 15, 191 8, the blow fell. Against the formidable 
positions of the Sokol and Dobropolye Serbian and French 
infantry launched one assault after another in quick succession, 
while the British delivered a series of violent attacks on the 
Gyevgyeli plateau front just across the Vardar, which prevented 
Bulgar aid from that sector being sent to the hard-pressed center. 
The Dobropolye was first submerged by the rising tide of attack, 
later the Sokol fell. In two days practically the whole first line 
of the Bulgarian. center was in Allied hands, but the Koziak but- 
tress of the second line still resisted. Serb troops held in readiness 
to pour through the opening and overrun the triangle were still 
unable to begin their task. The next day Mount Koziak was 
conquered, the third line pierced, and Serb forces began the 
advance northward along the highland pathway leading to the 
Cherna gorge. When this barrier was reached the rapid advance 
was checked for a time, the Bulgarians having destroyed the 
bridges and passerelles as they retired. 

Several days of fighting were required to break the enemy 
front on the northeastern end of the crest, from Mount Blatets 
to the Kechikaya massif. When the Allies finally broke through, 
the advance along the Marianska ridge to the Demir Kapu 



BATTLE OF MOGLENITSA 631 

gorge was rapid, and the Bulgarians in the Vardar region found 
their railway communication cut at a critical point in their 
rear. Meanwhile the northward advance along the other ridges 
had proceeded apace, and Allied forces were astride the vital road 
leading from Prilep in the Monastir basin to Gradsko in the 
Morava-Vardar corridor. The Cherna-Vardar triangle was 
cleared of the enemy, the Bulgarian army cut in two, and the 
severed wings denied the means of orderly retreat. 

Then began the flow of the Allied flood northward through the 
Morava-Vardar corridor, as the breach in the Bulgar wall was 
opened wider and wider. Nish was reached October 12 and the 
Orient railway cut, severing Turkey from her German over- 
lord and condemning her to an ignominious separate peace. A 
few days later Allied troops stood on the Danube, and Austria- 
Hungary tottered at the threat of a new invasion it could not 
ward off. It was then that the Italians struck their blow (p. 
536), and the Dual Monarchy collapsed like a house of cards. 

Meanwhile the Bulgarian armies had been definitely eliminated 
from the war. Their defense of the strong mountain front from 
the Sokol northeastward, while sufficiently vigorous to cause the 
Allies some difficulty, was not such as to indicate that the advan- 
tages of the position were properly utilized. It has been inti- 
mated, perhaps with good reason, that the Bulgar command, 
trusting to the natural strength of the Sokol-Dobropolye massif, 
had inadequately garrisoned it. The speed with which the 
difficult mountains of Macedonia were overrun by the victors, 
and the small number of Bulgarian casualties other than prison- 
ers, gave rise to the suspicion that the debacle was not wholly 
involuntary on the part of the Bulgarians. Ludendorff supports 
this view at some length and believes "no other explanation exists 
for the rapid advance of the Entente troops over broken country, 
eminently suited for defense," 2 while Colonel Bujac of the 
Serbian army indignantly rejects such an interpretation in his 

2 Erich von Ludendorff: Ludendorff's Own Story, August, 1014-November, 1918: 
The Great War from the Siege of Liege to the Signing of the Armistice As Viewed 
from the Grand Headquarters of the German Army, 2 vols., New York, 1919; refer- 
ence in Vol. 2, pp. 365-369- 



632 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS 

interesting account of the Battle of Moglenitsa. 3 However this 
may be, the Bulgarian troops certainly made comparatively poor 
use of the topographic advantages for defense which the mountain 
barriers of the Balkans offered them, once their retreat was well 
begun. At the Cherna, along the Vardar and the parallel trench 
of the Lakavitsa, as well as on the ridge between these two, stiff 
engagements were fought; and before the formidable mountain 
front along the Doiran-Struma moat the British and Greeks 
encountered "peculiarly stubborn resistance." But even here 
the Struma valley gateway to Sofia was opened by September 
27. Three days later the Bulgarian forces laid down their arms. 
In the victory of Moglenitsa Bulgaria's sudden and disas- 
trous attack on the exposed Serb flank in 1915 had been amply 
avenged. 

3 Colonel Bujac: L'offensive de septembre 1918 sur le front de Macedoine, Paris, 
1919, P- 70. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abbeville, 90 

Acknowledgments, xxiii 

Adamello group, 489, 497 (ill.), 516, 
525; crossing by dog sleds, 499 (ill.) 

Adige River, 496, 502 

Adige trench, 495 (ill.), 517, 524; pan- 
orama, pocket, PI. XI, B 

Adriatic Sea, 549 

Aerial tram, 489 

Agache River, 12s, 198, 202 

Agincourt, 90, lis 

Agram, 544 

Ailette River, 314; observation along 
valley, 244, 303 

Aire River lowland, 344 

Aisne, Battle of the, 289 

Aisne River, 242, 243, 250, 263, 332; 
lowland, 331 

Aisne- Vesle trench, 314 

Albania, 539, 544. 546, 592, 593, 619; 
mountains of southern, 578 (ill.) 

Albert, King, 55, 82, 83 

Allied armies, lack of unity of com- 
mand, 136, 158; unity of command, 
188 

Alluvial fans, Struma basin, 580 (ill.), 
601 

Alpine-and-piedmont battlefield, 488 

Alpini, 490, 500 (ill.) 

Alps, four corridors and transverse 
connections, 507; Trentine, 488. 
See also Carnic Alps; Julian Alps; 
Otztal Alps 

Alsace, first advance into, 473; second 
advance into. 487 

Alsace, Ballon d*. 427 (ill.), 428 (ill.), 
470 

Altkirch, 473 

Alto Adige, 496 

Amance, Mont d', 434 (ill.), 435 (ill.), 
439; eastern face, 438 (ill.) 

Amance bastion, 441, 484; looking 
southward from, 446 (ill.) 

American Geographical Society, xx, 
xxv 

American troops, 83; Argonne plateau, 
405, 407; Bellicourt, 205; first sec- 
tor taken over, 374; importance, 
309; St. Mihiel, 402, 404; Second 
Marne battle, 310, 311; Third 
Chemin des Dames battle, 307-308; 
Vosges, 472 



Amiens, 90, 124, 134, 183, 184; chalk 
near, no; defenses, 186; geology 
north of, 109 (map), no; location, 
132 

Ancre River, 140, 141, 144, 148, 177, 
194 

Anticlines, Somme battlefield, 93 
(ill.), 96 

Aout, Mont, 283, 285 

Ardennes Mountains, 91-92, 376, 377, 
378, 379 

Ardre River, observation along valley, 
244, 307 

Argonne Forest, 317, 336, 345. 408, 409 

Argonne plateau, 315, 335; American 
advance, 405, 407; block diagram, 
338-339; defensive value, 341; 
local combats in 1914-15, 388 

Argonnes, Little, 331 

Argyrocastro basin, 582 (ill.) 

Aridity, Champagne, 259; Soissonnais, 
231 

Arlberg, 509 

Armistice, 214 

Arras, 133, 140, 142, 189 

Arras, Battle of, 112, 163 

Arras-Vimy bastion, 65, 78, 163, 166, 
188; topographic elements of de- 
fense, 190 (map) 

Artillery, massed fire, 65; on the limon 
of the Somme region, 116; variable 
effects of fire, Somme battlefield, 
120; Verdun bombardment, 390, 
392 

Artois, 91, 92 

Artois, Battle of, 143 

Asiago plateau, 516, 518 (ill.), 525, 
527; panorama, pocket, PI. X, B 

Asiago Plateau, Battle of the, 525 

Astico River, 516; valley, 518 (ill.), 527 

Aube River, Napoleon and, 263 

Auerbach, Bertrand, xxiv 

Australian troops, 184 

Austria, 497 

Austria-Hungary, 631 

Austrian army, 528, 537, 538, 562, 
609, 625; Ludendorff on, 568; 
• strongholds on the front, 547 
(map) 

Austro-Italian frontier, 520; Matajur- 
Cucco ridge, 550 (ill.), 552 

Authie River, 87, 89 



6 3 6 



BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 



Authonne River, 270 
Avre River, 179 

Babuna Pass, 615 

Baccarat, 454, 461, 463 

Bacchiglione River, 502, 533 

Bacha Pass, 544. 545 

Badoglio, General, xxiii 

Bailleul, from Mont des Cats (ill.), 34 

Bainsizza plateau, 541, 547 (map), 
557, 564, 566, 568 

Baldo, Monte, 496 (ill.), 516, 524 

Balkan Peninsula, 572; barriers and 
trenches (map), 574; surface fea- 
tures, 585; two corridors, 575 

Balkan Range, 590 

Balkans, Battlefield of the, 572; corri- 
dors as objects of enemy strategy, 
579; Frontier, Battle of the, 605; 
local combats, 619; malarial low- 
lands, 603; military operations, 605; 
natural defenses of the two corridors, 
588; sketch map, 577; strategic 
position, 575; western mountains, 
592 

Ballon d'Alsace. See Alsace 

Ballons, 460, 470 

Balon, 460 

Barrois plateau, 345, 385. 386, 387 

Basins of the Balkans, 572 

Basis of present work, xx 

Bastions, natural, 504; Arras-Vimy, 
65, 78; 163, 166, 188, 190 (map); 
Lorraine, 448; Meuse plateau, 357; 
Moselle plateau, 441; Rheims, 310, 
311; Ypres, 37 

Battlefields, Balkans: range-and- basin, 
572; Flanders: wet clay plain, 1; 
Isonzo: karst plateau, 541; Lor- 
raine: cuesta-and- mountain, 415; 
Marne: plateau-and-lowland, 215; 
Somme: dry chalk plain, 84; Tren- 
tino: alpine-and-piedmont, 488; 
Verdun: cuesta-and-lowland, 316; 
western front, index map, 2 

Battles. See name of battle 

Beaumont-Hamel, 113, 151 

Beeks, 73 

Belashitsa Range, 573, 580 (ill.), 603, 
617, 624; panorama, pocket, PI. 
XI, A 

Belfort gateway, 421, 456, 473, 487 

Belgrade, 575, 576, 577. 589, 605, 607, 
609, 611 

Bellenglise, 204 

Bellicourt, 204, 205 



Belted plain, Flanders, 11, 12 (diagr.), 

13 (diagr.) 
Berlin-to-Bagdad railway route, 576 
Berru mountain, 254, 267, 291, 295, 300 
Berry-au-Bac, 251 
Berthaut, General, 141 
Biddulph, General, xxiii 
Biesme River, 337, 341, 389 
"Bird-cage lines," 600 
Bismarck, N. Dak., 95 (ill.) 
Black Forest Mountains, 457 
Blanchard, Raoul, xxiv 
Bligny, 247, 307, 314 
Bliss, T. H., xiv, xxvi 
Bliicher, G. L. von, 229, 234, 240, 247 
Bluff, the, 35, 66 
Bonaparte. See Napoleon 
Bora, 560 
Bosnia, 592, 608 
Boulogne-la-Grasse, 179, 180 
Bourgeois, General, xxiii 
Bourlon hill, 162, 168, 169, 203 
Bourlon Wood, 121, 125, 126 (map), 203 
Bouxieres, 451 
Bowman, Isaiah, xxv 
Bozen, 509, 510, 519 
Brenner Pass, 497, 507, 517 
Brenta River, 502, 516, 526, 533 
Bridgeheads, 330, 507; eastern coast of 

Adriatic, 544, 620 
Brie, 196 (ill.), 227 
Briey plateau, 374 
Brimont, 254, 267, 291, 295, 300 
Bruche (Breusch) valley, 469, 475 
Brunswick, Duke of, 338, 342 
Building stone, Soissonnais, 233 
Bujac, Colonel, 631 
Bulgaria, 584, 592; German diplomacy 

and, 579; situation, 581 
Bulgarian army, 539 
Bulgarians, 610, 612, 627, 631 
Bussang Pass, 468, 474 
Buttes, of the Champagne, 254, 267. 

See also Hills; Tertiary erosion 

remnant 

Cadorna, General, 500, 523, 528, 532; 

Isonzo battles, 563, 567, 570, 57 1 
Caesar's Camp, 125, 126 (map), 169, 198 
Calcaire grossier, 230, 233 
California, Italy compared with (with 

map), 498 
Cambrai, 133 

Cambrai, Battle of, 128, 166 
Camouflage on Somme battlefield road, 

97 (ill.) 



INDEX 



637 



Campolongo, 518 (ill.) 

Campomolon, 527 

Canadian troops, 163 

Canal du Nord, 130, 131, 169, 173, 174, 
175, 179 

Canals, as defensive positions, 29 (ill.). 
49 (ill.); Flanders, 7, 14, 28; 
Somme battlefield, 129 

Canche River, 87, 88, 89 

Caporetto, 500, 502, 529, 548 (ill.), 
549. 552, 564, 569 

Carlepont, 294 

Carnic Alps, 514, 529, 542 

Carso front, 531, 533. 535 

Carso plateau, 54L 545 (ill-). 554. 564; 
besieging, 565; defensive position, 
555 (ill-); map, 547 

Carso verde, 531 

Cassel, Mont, 37 

Cassel (Mont)-Mont Kemmel ridge, 13, 
80 

Castelnau, General de, xxiii, 139; 
Charmes Trough battle, 480; Lor- 
raine gateway, 476; Nancy forti- 
fication, 482; Saloniki region, 617; 
Somme-Py gateway, 298; Verdun, 
393 

Caterpillar Valley, 153 

Cats, Mont des, 3,, 5 (ill-). 53 

Caures Wood ridge, 392, 400 

Caverns, Moselle plateau, 429; Sois- 
sonnais, 233 

Chalk formation, 218 (ill.), 219 (ill.); 
Champagne escarpment, 254; char- 
acter of Champagne, 255; Flanders, 
10; Somme battlefield, 105, no, 
156; Somme battlefield caverns and 
excavations, 112; Somme plain, 
86 (map) 

Chalkidike Peninsula, 599 

Chalons, Camp of 260, 332 

Champagne, 217, 222; aridity, 259; 
block diagram, opp. 222; chalk 
escarpment, 254; chalk plain, 255; 
compared with Somme chalk plain, 
252; Dry and Wet, 224, 252, 262; 
hills, 266; military aspects, 260; 
military value of rivers and valleys, 
263; river captures, 264; rivers, 
261; view northwest across, 218 
(ill.); water supply, 261; Wet, 
316; Wet and Dry, 224, 252, 262 

Champagne, First Battle of the, 296 

Champagne, Monts de, 254 

Champagne, Second Battle of the, 298 

Champagne, Third Battle of the, 300 



Champagne pouilleuse, 221 

Champenoux Forest, 415, 420 (ill.), 
485 

Channel ports, 55, 60, 80, 138, 141 

Chantriot, Emile, xxiv 

Charleroi, 380 

Charmes, 328, 451 

Charmes Trough, 425, 456, 473, 479 

Charmes Trough, Battle of, 479 

Chateau-Thierry, 279, 307, 309, 311; 
ruined bridge, 246 (ill.) 

Chatel Chehery, 410 

Chaulnes, 155, 194 

Chemin des Dames, 231, 241, 244, 250, 
303, 314; block diagram, showing 
salient features, opp. 234 

Chemin des Dames, First Battle of the, 
299 

Chemin des Dames, Second Battle of 
the, 303 

Chemin des Dames, Third Battle of 
the, 304 

Cherna River, 615, 623; mountainous 
terrain in bend, 623, 626 (ill.) 

Cherna-Vardar triangle, 615, 616, 
617, 623, 628, 629 (map), 631 

Chiers River, 376, 414 

Chimara basin, descent into, 578 (ill.), 
619; road to, 621 (ill.) 

Chipote, Col de la, 465, 479 

Chivres bastion, 293, 299, 300, 306 

Churchill, Marlborough, xxiv 

Cividale, 551, 552, 569 

Clair s, 46, 123 (map), 124 

Clausewitz, Carl von, xviii, 26 

Clay formation, Flanders, n, 21, 35; 
Lorraine plain, 454; Somme battle- 
field, 108 

Clay-and-flint formation; Somme re- 
gion, 113 

Cliffs, Marne plateau, northern, 232 
(diagr.); Meuse plateau, 355 

Clyttes, 38 

Columbia University, xxv 

Combles, 150, 153, 154 

Combres, 388, 390, 403; ruins (ill.), 
357 

Commercy curtain, 358, 361 

Conde bridge, 292, 293 

Coni Zugna, 495 (ill.), 526 

Constantine, King, 611, 615, 617 

Constantinople, 575, 576, 586 

Contents, table of, iii 

Corons, 17 

Corridors of the Alps, 507 

Cote de Delme. See Delme 



6 3 8 



BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 



Cotes de Meuse, 355 

Coulommiers, 276 

Craonne, 294 

Craonne, Battle of, 251 

Crecy, 89, 90 

Crevecoeur, 205 

Crinchon River, 140, 141, 144 

Crise valley, 313 

Crozat Canal, 173, 199 

Crozat-St. Quentin-Scheldt canal sys- 
tem, 130, 160 

Crystalline rocks, 416 

Cuesta-and-lowland battlefield, 316 

Cuesta-and-mountain battlefield, 415 

Cuestas, 317; Flanders, 13; Moselle, 429 

Curlu, 148, 154 

Curtains, Lorraine, 448; Moselle pla- 
teau, 441 

Dalmatia, 544, 546 

Dammartin line of hills, 229, 237, 240, 

270, 273, 274 
Dams of Somme River, 124 
Danube River, 589, 631 
David, T. Edgeworth, xxiv, 68 
Davis, W. M., xxv; on river captures, 

265 
Dead Man's Hill, 365, 396, 397 
De Ambrosis, Delfino, xxiii 
Debeney, General, 180 
De Castelnau. See Castelnau 
Defensive positions, German in north- 
ern France (map), 208-209; need 

of art, 135, 165, 172, 18s, 237; 

river-marsh-canal, 199, 206; strong 

terrain, elements of, 502 
Denies of Meuse plateau, 359 
De Filippi, Captain, xxiii 
De Filippi, Filippo, xxiii 
Deforestation of Somme plain, 85 
De Langle de Cary, General, 377, 381; 

at Verdun, 393 
Delme, Cote de, 324 (ill.), 452, 476, 

478; from Moselle plateau scarp, 

444 (ill-) 
Demangeon, Albert, xxiv; on structure 

of Somme region, 100, lis, 124, 126 
Demir Kapu, 588, 616, 629, 630 
Diaz, General, xxiii, 532, 536 
Dieuze, 449, 476 
Dieuze-Gondrexange-Mittersheim, 477, 

478 
Digging in, 186; reluctance of British 

troops, 172 
Dikes, 43, 44; Isonzo River, 541, 559; 

Piave River, 505 (ill.), 531 



Dinant, 380 

Dixmude, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 

Doberdo plateau, 557, 566 

Dobropolye, Mount, 628, 630, 631 

Dobrudja, 581 

Doiran, Lake, 601 

Doiran-Struma basin, 6or, 603, 617, 

632 
Dominating heights, xv, 164-165: 

observation and, 302 
Doms-Avre barrier, 179, 180, 193 
Doms River, 132, 178 
Dormans, 24s (ill.), 308 
Douaumont region, panorama, pocket, 

PI. IX, B 
Douaumont, ridge and fort, 368 (ill.), 

369, 386, 394, 397 
Douaumont-Cote de Froide Terre 

ridge, 366, 394, 398 
Doullens, 89, 133 
Doyle, A. Conan, xxiv; defense of 

British army, 172; on crossing of 

canal barrier, 204-205; on defense 

of the Somme, 185 
Dragoman Pass, 585 
Drainage of Flanders maritime belt, 

43 (map), 44 
Drin River, 596 
Drina River, 605, 606, 612 
Drocourt-Queant line, 198 
Dry chalk plain battlefield, 84 
Dry Champagne, 224 
Dubail, General, 475, 476, 479 
Dugouts, Flanders, 28; Somme battle- 
field, 117, 118 (diagr.) 
Dumouriez, C. F., 340, 342 
Dun, 346, 365, 382 
Dunes, defenses, 50 (ill.), 51 (ill.); 

Flanders, 48 
Dunkirk, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 51 
Durazzo, 620 

Edward III, King, 89 

Eecloo canal, 83, 211 

Engineers, Italian, 488, 530 

Epernay, 218 (ill.), 309 

Epinal, 463, 465 

Epinal-Belfort line of fortresses, 328, 
329 (map), 466 

Erosion remnants. See Tertiary erosion 
remnants 

Escarpments, forest cover, value, 441 
(with diagr.); Marne plateau, 252, 
253 (ill.); Meuse plateau, 352 (ill.) 
354 (ill.), 355; Moselle and Saffais 
plateaus, 442 (ill.); Paris Basin. 



INDEX 



639 



Escarpments (continued) 

215, 218 (ill.), 219 (ill.), 221; Paris 

Basin, concentric, 224 
Esperey, Franchet d', 628 
Essey bastion, 451, 479, 480 
Elangs, 316 

Faidherbe, General, 126 

Fault scarp of Vimy Ridge, 101 
(diagr.) 

Ferrero, General, xxiii, 620 

Filtration, 128 

Finstermiinz Pass, 509, 51.5 (ill.) 

Fiume, 545, 546, 549, 595 

Flanders, fertility, 47; flatness, 3; 
maritime belt, 42; northern sand 
belt, 41; observation, 164; plain 
from Vimy Ridge, 104 (ill.); 
plain southward from Mont des 
Cats, 76 (ill.) ; population distribu- 
tion (map), 30; rainfall, 6 

Flanders, Battlefield of, 1; as a route 
for invading France, 7; block dia- 
gram, 39; clay belt, 21; dune belt, 
48; geographic unity, 52; geologi- 
cal structure (with diagr.), 10; 
German retreat, 83; harbors, 52; 
local combats, 65; maritime belt, 
drainage ditches and canals, 43 
(map), 44; maritime plain, 15; 
military operations, 53; mud, 22; 
physical obstacles, 8; rainfall, 22; 
river arrangement, 14; rivers of 
the clay plain, 25; sketch map, 3; 
southern sand belt, 21; strategic 
importance, 6; surface features, 9; 
topographic map, pocket, PL I; 
transition belt, 17; vegetation of 
clay plain, 33; water supply, 21, 31; 
water-soaked plain, 46 (ill.) 

Fleury, 366, 368 (ill.), 396, 397, 398 

Flitsch. See Plezzo 

Flooding. See Inundation 

Floods, Aisne, 333; Isonzo, 559; Marne 
plateau, 243; Meuse valley, 371 
(ill.), 372; Petit Morin, 241 (ill.); 
Piave, 535; Somme region, 128 

Foch, Ferdinand, 81, 188, 246; Meuse- 
Argonne battle, 412; observation of 
enemy in July, 1918, 246, 310; 
quoted, xviii, 540; St.Gond marshes, 
281; Second Marne battle, 313; 
Somme maneuver, 140, 142 

Forests, Argonne, 317; Champenoux, 
415, 420 (ill.), 485; Flanders, 33; "Lit- 
tle Argonnes," 331; Picardy and 



Forests (continued) 

Champagne compared, 259; Somme 
region, 121; Somme region, deforest- 
ation, 85; value of escarpment, 
441 (with diagr.) ; Villers-Cotterets, 
290; Vosges, 464; western Brie 
region, 228 

Foreword, xiii 

Fortification, 237; natural elements, 
504 

France, northern (map), 208-209 

Franco-German frontier, 457, 467 

Franco-Prussian War, 90, 116 

Frankfort, Treaty of, 482 

French, Sir John, 53; on the invasion of 
the Somme, 135, 136 

Froide Terre, Cote de, 366, 394, 398 

Froissart, Jean, 26, 89 

Frontier, Battle of the, 377 

Frontiers, strategic, xvi 

Fugazze Pass, 524, 526 

Galicia, 528 

Gas, poison, 64, 171, 306, 398 

Gateways, Aisne lowland, 333; Belfort, 
421,456,473,487; France, between 
Flanders and Paris region, 92 (map), 
93; Isonzo battlefield, 542; Lor- 
raine, 421, 456, 476; Montdidier- 
Lassigny, 179, 180; Paris Basin, 
326; Pear Tree Pass, 542; Somme. 
Py, 297, 298 

Gendarme's Hat, 148, 154 

Gentelles plateau, 183, 184 

Geology, value of knowledge in war, 
68, 119, 120 

German army, defensive positions in 
northern France (map), 208-209; 
quality, 210, 212, 413 

German diplomacy in the Balkans, 579 

Gheluvelt, 54, 55, 61, 63, 70, 73 

Gipsy Pass, 588, 602, 623 

Giudicaria-Val Sugana corridor, 511, 
523 

Givenchy, 77, 78 

Glaciation, Vosges, 460 

Gohelle, 17, 65, 75; from Vimy Ridge, 
16 (ill.) 

Gorizia, 541, 554, 557, 559, 561. 566 

Gouraud, General, xxiii, 31, 310, 312, 
315, 40s, 408 

Gradisca, 559, 561 (ill.), 564 

Grand Couronne, 318 (diagr.), 373, 
431, 479, 480 

Grand Couronne, Battle of the, 481 

Grand Morin, 265, 266, 271, 276, 279 



640 



BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 



Grappa, Monte, 489, 500, 516, 530, 533, 
536; military road ascending, 494 
(ill.); tunnels and openings, 530 

Great Basin (United States), 573 

Great Plains (United States), 95 (ill.) 

Greece, 579, 58i, 584, 625 

Greene, F. V., xxvi 

Guebwiller, Ballon de, 471, 475, 487 

Guillaumat, General, 628 

Guise, 210, 211, 213, 214 

Guise-St. Quentin, Battle of, 135. 136 

Gyevgyeli plateau, 588, 602, 623, 630 

Haig, Sir Douglas, xxiii; on conditions 
in Flanders, 71, 72, 74; on Flanders 
mud, 66; on pursuit in the Somme 
region, 159, 160; on the First Battle 
of the Somme, 152; on the invasion 
of the Somme, 136; on the Ypres 
position, 67, 70; on Verdun, 145 

Hallue River, 125, 126, 127 

Ham, 9c, 91, 132 

Harbors in Flanders, 52 

Hartmannsweilerkopf, 471, 487 

Hattonchatel bastion, 352 (ill.). 357. 
402 

Haumont ridge, 392 

Havrincourt, 200 

Haye, Forest of, 431 

Haye region, 373 

Henry V, King, 90 

Henry of Nassau, 90 

Henrys, General, xxiii 

Hermada hills, 556 (ill.), 557, 567, 568 

Hermann Stellung, 83, 211 

Hertsegovina, 592 

Heudicourt, 322 (ill.) 

Hill 60, 36 

Hill 70, 65, 75 

Hill 304, 348, 395, 396, 397 

Hills, Champagne, 266; Flanders, 3, 33, 
35; Somme battlefield, 98 

Hindenburg Line, 157, 160, 166, 170, 
198, 200; breaching, 205; collapse, 
207; machine-gun shelter, 201 
(ill.); main wire defenses, 167 
(ill.) ; strength, 200, 202 

Hindenburg Retreat, 158, 162, 298 

Holnon Wood, 121, 173 

Holt, Henry, & Co., xx 

Hortillonnages, 124 

House, E. M., xxi 

Humbert, General, 284 

Hunding Line, 214 

Hunding-Brunhilde Stellung, 213, 315, 
344,405,411 



Hunding-Brunhilde- Kriemhild position, 

412, 413 
Hurlus, 297 

111 River, 473, 474, 475, 509 

Illustrations, list of, v 

Inn corridor, 507, 512 (ill.) 

Innsbruck, 512 (ill.) 

Introduction, xv 

Inundation, as a defense, 43, 244; 
Isonzo River, 560; Vesle valley 
near Fismes, 247 (ill.) ; Yser region, 
59 

Invasion of the Somme, 134 

Iron Gate, 589, 590, 606, 611 

Isker River, 590 

Isonzo, Battlefield of the, 541; block 
diagram, pocket, PI. VIII; map of 
Isonzo front, 547; military opera- 
tions, 563; military value of bar- 
riers, 561; panorama, pocket, PI. X, 
A ; parallel ridges of the Alps in 
the north, 548 (ill.), 549; relation of 
the Trentino battlefield to, 499; 
sketch map, 543; strategic position, 
542; surface features, 549 

Isonzo, First Battle of the, 563 

Isonzo, Fourth Battle of the, 567 

Isonzo, Second Battle of the, 565 

Isonzo, Third Battle of the, 567 

Isonzo River, 541, 548 (ill.), 558 (ill.); 
at base of Carso plateau, 561 (ill.); 
valley, 559 

Italian engineers, 488, 530 

Italian front, 488; across karst plateau, 
552 (ill.); general map, 490 

Italian frontier, 553 

Italian troops, 489, 570 

Italy, "American line" frontier, 553; 
factors influencing her entrance into 
the war, 492, 520, 544; form, 498 
(with map); strategic plans, 545, 
546 

Jaulgonne, 311 

Joerg, W. L. G., xxvi 

Joffre, Marshal, xxiii; First Battle of 
the Somme, 158; instruction of 
Aug. 25, 1914, 382; order of Sept. 
4, 1914, 281; orders for the Marne 
offensive, 384; retreat to Seine, 269; 
Sambre front, 379, 381; Somme 
maneuver, 139; Somme operations, 
146; strategic salient, 272; Verdun, 
393, 398 

Julian Alps, 541, 542 



INDEX 



641 



Kachanik, 597, 613, 614 

Kaimakchalan massif, 618, 628 

Kaiser, 62, 63, 486 

Kanal-Stellung, 195 

Karaburun ridge, 619 

Karst, 531, 541, 595 

Karst plateau battlefield, 541 

Karst plateaus, Isonzo battlefield, 554; 

Italian front across, 552 (ill.); sink 

hole, 553 (ill.) 
Kemmel, Mont, 2, 4 (ill.), 79. See also 

Cassel 
Kemmel (Mont)-Vimy Ridge region, 

block diagram, 106-107 
Khortach Range, 599 
Kilmaine, General, 125 
Kitchener, Lord, 136 
Klagenfurt, 544 
Kluck, General von, 134, 137; change 

of front, 273; escape, 277 
Knight, S. H., xxi, xxiv 
Kolubara valley, 597. 606, 609 
Konigspitze, 517 (ill.) 
Kosovo Polye, 595, 597, 613 
Koziak, Mount, 628, 629, 630 
Kriemhild Stellung, 405, 411 
Krusha Balkan, 580 (ill.), 601, 624 
Krusha-Beshik range, 601, 602, 624 
Kuk, 567 
Kumanovo, 587, 588, 591, 612 

La Bassee, 54, 65 

La Boisselle ravine, 94 (ill.) 

Labyrinth, the, 143 

La Croix-aux-Bois, 336, 341, 342 

La Fere, 133, 135 

La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, 247, 250, 270, 

278 
Lahana saddle, 599, 601, 624 
Laibach, 544 

Lakes in Lorraine plain, 453 
Langadha-Beshik basin, 600 
Lanrezac, General, 135, 136, 378, 379 
Laon, 234, 251, 315 
Laonnois, 233 

Lassigny massif, 175, 184, 193, 215, 234 
Le Cateau, 135, 211, 213 
Le Chene Tondu, 410 
Le Chesne, 34°. 34 1 . 342, 345. 413 
Le Crotoy, 90 
Le Mont, 361, 404 
Lens.^65, 75 

Les Eparges, 388, 390, 403 
Les Islettes, 337, 340 
Leskovats basin, 575, 591, 612 



Limestone, Karst, 541; Moselle pla- 
teau, 418 (ill.), 429; mountains of 
southern Albania, 578 (ill.); Paris 
Basin, 216, 225; Soissonnais, 230, 
233; Verdun, 318 (ill.), 320, 321 

Limon, 114, 254 

Lizerne, 64 

Loam, Flanders, 15; Marne plateau, 
229; Somme battlefield, 108, 115, 
156, 158, 159, 165 

Lobeck, A. K., xxv 

Loess in Somme battlefield, 108, 114 

London, Treaty of, 538, 544 

Longwy, 376, 377 

Lorraine, Battlefield of, 415; block 
diagram, pocket, PI. VI; cross- 
section, 418-419; defined, 424; 
military operations, 473; sketch 
map, 417; strategic position, 419; 
surface features, 429; topographic 
map, pocket, PI. V 

Lorraine, plain of, 415, 424, 452 

Lorraine, plateau of, 453 

Lorraine gateway, 421, 456, 476 

Losnitsa, 605, 606, 609 

"Lost Battalion," 409 

Louvemont-Cote du Poivre ridge, 393, 
394. 399. 4CO 

Ludendorff, Erich von, great offensive 
in July, 1918, 309; on American 
troops, 308; on Macedonia, 584; 
on the Battle of the Lys, 75, 77; 
on the loss of Vimy Ridge, 164; 
on the Ypres bastion, 67; on Ver- 
dun 328; Somme offensive, 170; 
Third Chemin des Dames battle,304; 
Yser barrier and, 58 

Ludres bastion, 43 

Luneville bastion, 449; distant view, 
446 (ill.) 

Lys, Battle of the, 75 

Lys-Hermann Line, 211 

Lys River, 26, 27, 53 

Lys salient.German withdrawal from, 81 

Macedonia, 584, 631; campaign of 
1916, 617 

Machva, 589, 606 

Malakastra ridge, 620, 621, 622 (ill.) 

Malaria in the Balkans, 603 

Malmaison, Fort, 244, 247, 303 

Malyen Ridge, 597, 606, 609 

Maneuver of the Somme, 138 

Mangin, Joseph, 397; on Allied unity 
of command, 158; on Verdun situa- 
tion, 146 



642 



BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 



Manonviller bastion, 449, 485 

Marianska range, 629, 630 

Maritime belt, Flanders, 15, 42; drain- 
age ditches and canals, 43 (map), 44 

Maritsa River, 581, 586 

Marlborough, Duke of, 19, 89 

Marne, Battlefield of the, 215; defined, 
222; military operations, 269; 
sketch map, 216; strategic position, 
222; surface features, 225; topo- 
graphic map, pocket, PI. Ill 

Marne, First Battle of the, 269, 382 

Marne, Second Battle of the, 309 

Marne plateau, 217; block diagram, 
showing salient features, opp. 
222; cliff slope in northern portion, 
232 (diagr.) ; contrasted dip of 
belts, 226 (diagr.); crest, 24s (ill.), 
246 (ill.), 247 (ill.), 252, 253 (ill-); 
cross-sections, 217 (diagrs.); de- 
scription, 225; escarpment, 252, 
253 (ill.)'; escarpment, vineyard- 
covered slopes, 218 (ill.), 219 (ill.); 
Napoleon's campaign of 1814, 
247; parallel lineaments, 235; 
parallel lineaments, military sig- 
nificance of, 238, 239 (map); 
topographic barriers, 240 

Marne-Rhine Canal, 334, 449, 456 

Marne River, 263; bridge, destroyed, 
at Chateau Thierry, 246 (ill.); 
flat-floored valley, 242 (ill.) ; valley 
near Vincelles, 245 (ill.) 

Marshes, Flanders, 18, 19 (ill.), 22, 26, 
46; Piedmont plain, bordering the 
Adriatic, 503 (ill.); St. Gond, 266, 
267 (ill.) ; St. Gond, role in Marne 
battle, 281, 286, 288; Somme region, 
as military barriers, 125; Somme 
region, changes, 124; Somme River, 
122 (ill.), 123 (map) 

Mash Valley, 94 (ill.), 153 

Matajur-Cucco ridge, 550 (ill.), 551, 
552, 569 

Maunoury, General, 274, 280, 294 

Maurienne River, 265, 266, 285 

Maye River, 89 

Meander spurs in Meuse valley, 365 

Meanders of Meuse River (with block 
diagram), 364 

Meaux, 222, 229, 249, 273 

Messines, 67, 79, 82 

Messines-Passchendaele ridge, 38, 54, 
61, 63, 67, 80 

Messines Ridge, 69 

Messines Ridge, Battle of, 41, 67 



Metz, 325, 327, 414, 452 

Meurthe River, 451, 456; ^looking up 
stream near Raon l'Etape, 462 
(ill.) 

Meuse-Argonne, Battle of the, 404 

Meuse gateway, 328 

Meuse plateau, 349; abandoned valley 
of the Moselle (ill.), 360; block dia- 
gram, 338-339; crest in Les Eparges 
sector (ill.), 357; east of Verdun 
(ill.), 368; escarpment, 355; nat- 
ural bastions and curtains, 357; 
panorama (with Woevre lowland), 
pocket, PL IX, A ; portion showing 
former course of Moselle River 
(ill.), 358; scarp facing Woevre 
lowland (ills.), 352, 354; southeast 
from Fort Gironville (ill.), 442; 
strategic defiles, 359; valley of the 
Meuse, 363; west of Verdun, look- 
ing northwest and north (ills.), 
3SO, 351 

Meuse River, 326, 328, 330, 367; as a 
barrier, 367; meanders (block dia- 
gram), 364; valley, 320, 351 (ill.), 
363; valley flooded (ill.), 371 

Meuse-Sambre front, 378, 381 

Milne, General, xxiii 

Mine dumps, 17 

Mineral waters, 455 

Mines, military, Flanders, 40, 65-66; 
Ypres bastion, 68 

Missy ravine, 313 

Moeres, 46 

Moeuvres, 203 

Moglenitsa, Battle of, 623, 624 

Moglenitsa basin, 629 (with map) 

Monastir, 594 (ill.), 595, 596, 615, 619 

Monastir basin, 573, 618; floor, 594 
(ill.) 

Monchy-le-Preux, 165, 197 

Mondemont bastion, 267, 281, 283, 
284, 285, 288 

Monfalcone, 555, 559, 564 

Mons, 381 

Mons-Conde Canal, 380, 381 

Mont. See name of mountain 

Mont, Le, 361, 404 

Montdidier, 132, 178, 181, 183 

Montdidier-Lassigny gateway, 179, 180 

Montdidier-Moreuil obstacle, 179 

Montello, 508 (ill.), 530, 534. 535 

Montenegro, 592, 593, 615 

Montfaucon, butte of, 349, 387, 389, 
406, 408; distant view (ill.), 350 

Montmirail, 312 



INDEX 



643 



Morava-Maritsa corridor, defenses, 500; 
form, 585; importance, 575; occu- 
pation by enemy, 612 

Morava River, 58s 

Morava River, Western, 597, 613 

Morava valley, 588; wagon train, 586 
(ill.) 

Morava- Vardar corridor, 575; defenses, 
590; form, 587; importance, 576; 
occupation by enemy, 612 

Moreuil, 179, 180, 181; plateau, 183 

Morhange, Battle of, 478 

Morhange bastion, 478 

Morhange-Dieuze bastion, 449, 476 

Moronvilliers massif, 254, 257 (ill.), 
267, 268, 291, 29s, 300, 301, 302, 
303, 310, 311,313, 315 

Morris, F. K., xxv 

Mort Homme, 365, 396, 397 

Mortagne River, 451, 456, 480 

Moselle gateway, 328 

Moselle plateau, 372, 415, 429, 436 
(ill.); as barrier, 443; form of pro- 
file, 439, 441 (diagr.); natural bas- 
tions and curtains, 441 

Moselle River, 321, 328, 430, 456; 
abandoned valley (ill.), 360; former 
course (ill.), 358; valley as barrier, 
466; valley of upper (ill.), 426; 
valley of upper from Ballon d 'Al- 
sace (ill.), 427 

Moselle trench, 439 

Mosquitoes, 572, 603 

Mound, the, 36 

Mountain warfare, 488, 489, 563; Al- 
pine costumes, 489, 500 (ill.) 

Mountains, xv; Balkan Peninsula, 572 

Mousson, butte of, 436 (ill.) 

Mud, fighting in, 73, 74; Flanders, 22, 
47, 66; Marne plateau, 229; Somme 
battlefield, 156, 157, 158 

Mudge, I. G., xxv 

Mulhouse (Mulhausen), 421, 471, 475 

Namur, 379, 380 

Nancy, 374, 431, 481; defenses, 437, 

439i question of fortification of, 

481. See also Grand Couronne 
Nancy, Battle of, 481 
Nancy curtain, 484; looking southward 

across, 446 (ill.) 
Nancy region, block diagram, 432-433; 

natural bastions and curtains, 483 

(map) 
Napoleon, 229, 234, 240; Aube River 

trap, 263; campaign of 1814 on the 



Napoleon (continued) 

Marne plateau, 247; Italian fron- 
tier, 563; on defensive positions, 13s, 
165, 172, 185; on "digging in," 186; 
on river floods, 243; on the Marne 
plateau roads, 229 

Narenta River, 596 

Natagne River valley, 434 (ill.), 437 

Natisone River, 551 

Nero, Monte, 548 (ill.), 564, 569 

Neuve Eglise, 79, 81 

New Zealanders, 205 

Nied valley curtain, 449, 478 

Nieuport, 52, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 

Nish, 585, 587, 591, 612, 631 

Nishava River, 591 

Nishava valley, 585 

Nivelle, General, 299, 303, 397 

Noce-Avisio corridor, 510, 525 

Noyon, 176 

Noyon-Lassigny massif, 121, 175 

Noyon massif, 139, 142, 215, 234 

Observation, Barrois plateau, 347; 
" details and importance, 244, 246; 
dominating crests, 302; Italian 
plain and dominating mountains, 
500, 508 (ill.); Mont d'Amance, 
446 (ill.); Moselle plateau, 440; 
Saffais plateau, 422 (ill.), 423 (ill.); 
valleys of Marne plateau, 244 

Ogilvie, A. G., xxiv, 599, 603 

Oise, Battle of the, 308 

Oise-Aisne Canal, 292 

Oise Canal, 130, 131 (ill.) 

Oise River, 126, 135, 136, 137, 171, 199, 
213, 269; defense, 172 

Oppachiasella, 545 (ill.) 

Orchies, 12 

Orfano, Gulf of, 599 

Orlando-Sonnino government, defense 
of projects, 546 

Orsova, 589, 606, 611 

Ortler group (Alps), 514, 517 (ill.) 

Ostend, 43, 51, 52, 83 

Ostrovo basin, 618 

Otztal Alps, 513 (ill-), S14 

Ourcq, Battle of the, 137, 249, 275 

Ourcq River, 237, 238, 249, 274 

Pain de Sucre, 439, 485 

Pannes, 49 

Paris, defenses, 270, 271; defenses, 
rock structure of, 237, 238; natural 
defenses, 325, 335; rivers converg- 
ing on, 222 



644 



BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 



Paris Basin, 215, 217; contrasted dip 

of belts, 226 (diagr.) 
Passchendaele, 55, 61, 63 
Passerelles, 26; near Yser River, 45 

(ill.), 47 
Passes, Balkans, 585, 591; blocking, in 

the Trentino, 523; Brenner, 497, 

S07. 517; Isonzo battlefield, 551; 

Tonale, 510, 525; Vosges, 467, 474. 

See also names of passes 
Pasubio, Monte, 516, 524, 527; seen 

from airplane, 501 (ill.) 
Pau, General, 474, 476 
Peace Conference, xxii 
Pear Tree Pass, 542, 544, 554, 560 
Peat, 124, 125 

Peneplane, Vosges, 427 (ill.), 459 
Peronne, 90, 91, 132, 141, 155, I9S. 197 
Peronne-Noyon line, 177 
Pershing, General, 405; St. Mihiel 

salient, 402; Second Marne battle, 

310 
Petain, General, 146; at Verdun, 393, 

397, 398 
Petit Morin, 264, 265, 266, 267, 277, 

279; flooded floor of valley, 241 

(ill.) 
Pevele, 20 
Philip Augustus, 23 
Philip II, 90 

Piave, First Battle of the, 529 
Piave, Second Battle of the, 534 
Piave River, 492, 502, 529, 571; as 

barrier, 531; channels and sand 

bars, 505 (ill.) ; dike with machine- 
gun positions, 505 (ill.); front line 

trenches behind, 511 (ill.); seen 

from Monte Grappa, 508 (ill.) 
Picardy, 91, 92, 255, 259 
Piedmont, 492, 499, 502, 516, 520, 

533. 542, 559; coastal marshes, 

S03 (ill.) 
Pierrepont, 179, 180 
Pirot, 585, 59i, 612 
Plateau-and-lowland battlefield, 215 
Plateaus, Karst, 541; Paris Basin, 

215, 217. See also Marne, Meuse, 

etc. 
Plezzo (Flitsch), 564, 569; basin, 

558 (ill.) 
Po River, 492, 502 
Poison gas, 64, 171, 306, 398 
Poivre, Cote du, 366, 394, 396, 397, 399 
Pola, S49 
Pont-a-Mousson gateway, 436 (ill.), 

437 



Pontebba (Pontafel) Pass, 551, 552 
Porquericourt Mountain, 176 
Predil Pass, 551, 552, 559 
Primolano, 516, 526 
Pustertal, 509, 525 
Py River, 315 

Quarries, 233 

Ragusa, 592 

Rainfall in Flanders, 6, 22, 71, 72 

Rambervillers, 463 

Range-and-basin battlefield, 572 

Raon-1'Etape, 462 (ill.), 463, 465 

Rawlinson, General, xxiii, 54, 152 

Relief models, 69 

Rembetant, 449, 480 

Renaud, Mont, 174 (ill.), 176; forti- 
fied summit, 175 (ill.) 

Rheims, 254 

Rheims, Basin of 254; looking north- 
east, 256 (ill.) 

Rheims, Mountain of, 218 (ill.), 230, 
253. 3i i> 313; observation from, 256 
(ill.), 3io 

Rheims bastion, 308, 309 

Rhine, 457, 473 

Rhine basin, 420 

Rhodope Mountains, 590 

Ribecourt, 314 

Rideaux, 100 

Riots, 128 

Rivers, as barriers in Verdun battlefield, 
332; as defenses in Trentino battle- 
field, 502; Champagne, 261; Cham- 
pagne, changed courses, 264, 26s 
(map) ; Champagne, military value, 
263; converging on Paris, 222; 
Flanders, arrangement, 14; Flanders 
clay plain, 25; floods in Marne pla- 
teau, 243 ; France, northern, 87, 88 
(map); Lorraine plain, 455; "lost 
rivers," 430 

Roads, Italian military, 489, 494 (ill.), 
49S (ill.), 496 (ill.), 530, 621; 
Somme battlefield, 98; sunken, 
Somme region, 117; western Bal- 
kans, 596 

Rovereto, 524 

Roye, 91, 132, 179, 180 

Rozieres, 237 

Rudnik, Mount, 606, 607 (map); 
Battle of, 608 

Rumania, 581 

Rumanian front, xx 



INDEX 



645 



Rupt de Mad, 358, 361, 374 
Russian front, xx 

Saales Pass, 469, 47s 

Saffais plateau, 447, 479; bastion and 

curtain form of cuesta, 448, 451; 

escarpment, 422 (ill.), 484; looking 

southeast from, 423 (ill.) ; lowland 

east of, 450 (ill.) 
Sailly-Saillisel, 153, 154 
St. Die, 463, 469, 480 
St. Dizier, 334 
St. Eloi, 36, 66 
St. Gobain massif, 161, 162, 166, 176, 

191, 215, 234 
St. Gond marshes, 266, 267 (ill.), 281, 

286, 288 
St. Michel (Cote)-Fort Vaux ridge, 366, 

397, 398, 399 
St. Mihiel, 330 

St. Mihiel Salient, First Battle of, 388 
St. Mihiel Salient, Second Battle of, 

389 
St. Mihiel Salient, Third Battle of, 400 
St. Quentin, 90, 129, 132, 135, 173, 207 
St. Quentin, Mont, 155, 19s 
St. Quentin Canal, 204 
St. Valery, 90 
Ste. Genevieve, Mont, 485 
Ste. Genevieve-Mont Toulon ridge 

434 (ill.), 437 
Ste. Genevieve plateau, 435 (ill.), 437 
Ste. Menehould, 334 
Saline deposits in Lorraine plain, 455 
Saloniki, 577, 584, 599; entrenched 

camp, 597; natural defenses (map), 

598 
Sambre, Battle of the, 213 
Sambre River, 213, 378 
San Dona di Piave, 533, 534 
San Michele, Monte, 555, 557, 566 
Sand, Flanders, 10, 21; Flanders, 

northern belt, 41 
Sandbag shelters, Yser River (ill.), 45 
Sandstone, Lorraine, 416 
Sanon River, 449, 456 
Santerre, 98, 115, 155, 178, 183 
Sarrail, General, 384, 38s, 618, 628 
Sarre coal basin, 456 
Sarre River, 456, 476 
Sarrebourg-Morhange, Battle of, 475, 

476 
Saseno Island, 619 
Saulx-Ornain-Sermaize heights barrier, 

386, 387 
Sausage Valley, 153 



Save basin, 542 

Save-Danube barrier, 589, 60s, 607, 

608, 610 
Save River, 589; Austrian forces along, 

587 (ill.) 
Saverne (Zabern), 464, 468 
Saxe, Marshal, 43 
Scarp. See Escarpments 
Scarpe valley, 18, 19 (ill.) 
Scheldt River, 83, 204, 205; as barrier, 

125, 168, 170 
Schlucht Pass, 468, 474 
Schwarzenberg, K. P. von, 248, 264 
Schwarzwald, 457 
Scope of present work, xix 
Scutari, 596 

Sec, Mont, 361, 362 (ill.), 403, 404 
Sedan, 327, 328, 376, 414 
Seille lowland, 372, 444 (ill.), 44s; from 

Mont d'Amance (ill-), 324 
Seille River, 325, 445, 476 
Seille River, Little, 449 
Seille-Xantois lowland, 444 
Seine River, 223, 248, 263 
Selle River, 83, 210, 211 
Semendria, 60s, 607, 61 r 
Semeni plain, 620, 621 
Semois, Battle of the, 380 
Semois River, 376, 377, 380 
Semple, E. C, xxv 
Sensee Canal, 19 
Sensee River, 125, 198, 203 
Sensee valley, 18 
Serbia, 579, 581, 592, 605; conquest of, 

610; northwestern (map), 607 
Serbs, 590, 608, 615, 632 
Servance, Ballon de, 466, 470 
Sette Comuni, 516 
Shell holes, 120 
Shelters, Carso plateau, 555 (ill.); 

concrete, 201; machine-gun, Hin- 

denburg Line, 201 (ill.) ; subterra- 
nean, 233 
Shkumbi valley, 596 
Siegfried Stellung. See Hindenburg 

Line 
Sink holes in Carso front, 531, 535, 

553 (ill.) 
Sivry-la-Perche, 345, 347 
Skoplye (Uskiib), 588, 595, 612; basin, 

S73 
Slavonic troops, 538 
Soissonnais, 230 
Soissons, 250, 269, 294, 29s, 296, 299, 

314 
Sokol, Mount, 628, 630, 631 



646 



BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 



Somme, 262 

Somme, Battlefield of the, 84, 85 (map) ; 
agriculture, 116; Allied defenses, 
186, 187; Allied engineering works, 
148; anticlines and synclines, 93 
(map), 96; block diagram, 39; 
canals, 129; dry valleys, 127, 129 
(ill.) ; gateway between Flanders 
and Paris region, 92 (map), 93; 
general aspect, 84; gentle slopes, 94 
(ill.), 182 (ill.); geological structure 
in relation to trench and dugout 
locations, 117, 118 (diagr.); geo- 
logical structure of the hills, 105, 
106 (diagr.) ; German defensive 
positions, 208-209 (map) ; German 
fortification, 144, 151, 186; low 
hills, 98; military operations, 134; 
military operations influenced by 
the four formations, 156; portion 
north of Amiens, 109 (map), 
no; rivers and valleys, 87, 88 
(map); road camouflaged, 97 (ill.); 
rock types, effect on campaign, 109; 
strategic points, 131; strategic posi- 
tion, 87; surface features, 96; Ter- 
tiary erosion remnants, 121; topo- 
graphic map, pocket, PI. II; val- 
leys, 122; villages, 31 (map), 112 

Somme, First Battle of the (1916), 144, 
167; anticlinal arch, 93 (map), 146 
(map), 150; field of operations, 147 
(map) ; three sectors of operations, 
146 (with map), 150 

Somme, invasion of the, 134 

Somme, maneuver of the, 138 

Somme, Second Battle of the, 170 

Somme, Third Battle of the, 192 

Somme Canal, 124, 129, 130 

Somme-Py gateway, 297, 298, 300 

Somme River, as military barrier, 89; 
defenses, 187; marshes, 122 (ill.), 
123 (map); marshy valley at Brie 
crossing, 196 (ill.); open valley, 
182 (ill.); why barrier failed, 184 

Somme-Tortille barrier, 160, 174 

Souchez, ruins, 103 (ill.) 

Souham, General, 43 

Souville, Fort, 398 

Springs, Dry Champagne, 262; 
mineral, Lorraine, 455 

Struma basin, 573; floor, s8o (ill.) 

Struma River, 590, 599, 624 

Strumitsa valley, 591 

Sugar beet culture, 87, 113 

Suippe valley, 264 



Surmelin River, 312 
Synclines in Somme battlefield, 93 
(ill.), 96 

Tagliamento River, 492, 502, 571 

Tanks, 71. 74. 77, 158, 167, 168, 184, 
194, 207; abandoned, 196 (ill.); 
first use, Somme battlefield, 99; 
tank fright, 199 

Tardenois, 228 

"Tardieu project," 54.6 

Tarvis, 551 

Telef erica, 489, 497 (ill.), 530 

Terraces in Somme battlefield, 100 

Terrain, value, xvi 

Terre a briques, 156 

Terres de Picardie, 255 

Tertiary erosion remnants, Lorraine, 
449, 452; Marne plateau, 228, 229, 
234; Meuse plateau, 321, 361, 
362 (ill.); Somme region, 121, 155, 
168, 170, 174 (ill.), 17s (ill.), 176, 
179 

Tervaete bend, S7> 58 

Theodosius, 560 

Thiepval, 151, 152 

Thomas, Shipley, 403 

Timok River, 590, 591 

Tolmino, 551, 552, 553, 559, 565, 569 

Tonale Pass, 510, 525 

Topography, xv 

Tortille River, 197, 198 

Tortille valley, 153, 154. *55 

Toul, 328, 330, 359, 360, 361, 430, 431 

Toulon hill, 267, 282 

Tourcoing, Battle of, 27 

Trace, Col de, 465 

Trees, Champagne, 259; clay-and-fiint 
formation, 113. See also Forests 

Trenches, military, Balkans, 624; 
Carso plateau, 555; Champagne, 
260; Italian behind Piave River, 
511 (ill.); Somme battlefield, 117, 
118 (diagr.); submerged, in Flan- 
ders, 28 

Trenches, natural, Marne plateau, 240; 
Saloniki region, 600 

Trent, 511, 514, 521, 523, 524, 526 

"Trent and Trieste," 544 

Trentine Alps, 488 

Trentino, Battlefield of the, 488; Al- 
pine corridors, 507; block diagram, 
pocket, PI. VII; defensive terrain, 
502; military operations, 523; 
military strength, 517; mountain 
barriers, 514; position of river de- 



INDEX 



647 



Trentino, Battlefield of the (continued) 
fenses, 502; relation to Isonzo bat- 
tlefield, 499; sketch map, 493; 
strategic position of the Trentine 
Alps, 492; surface features, 507 

Trieste, 544. 549. 554. 557 

Tronquoy tunnel, 204, 206, 207 

Tser, Mount, 606, 608 

Tunnels, Flanders, 40; ice, 489; Mo- 
ronvilliers massif, 301; Somme bat- 
tlefield, 117, 118 (diagr.); Somme 
region, 112; Trentine Alps, 520, 
521 (ill.) 1 530; Tronquoy railway, 
204, 206, 207. See also Mines 

Turenne, Marshal, 165 

Turkey, 593, 631 

Tyrol, 496 

Uskiib. See Skoplye 
Uzhitse, 597, 609 

Vakarel Pass, 586 

Val Sugana, 511 

Vallarsa, 526 

Valleys, Champagne, 264; flat-floored, 
as obstacles, 242 (ill.) ; flooded 
floor, Petit Morin, 241 (ill.); Marne 
plateau, 240; Marne plateau, ob- 
servation along, 244; profiles, two 
types, 241, 243 (diagr.'); Somme bat- 
tlefield, 122; Somme region, asym- 
metry of slope, 126; Somme region, 
dry, 127, 129 (ill.) 

Vallum dolens, 89 

Valmy, Battle of, 255, 342 

Valois, 228 

Valona, 619, 620 

Valyevo, 597, 606, 609 

Van Deman, R. H., xxiv 

Vardar River, 588, 603, 615 

Vardar valley, 616 

Varna, 581 

Vaudemont, 439, 443 

Vauquois, 348, 349 (ill.), 389, 406 

Vaux, Fort, 366, 396, 397. 398 

Vaux ravine, 356, 396, 397 

Veles, 588, 612, 614 

Venice, 534 

Verdun, 145, 271; block diagram of the 
region, 364; cross ridges and 
connecting "bridges" (with map), 
366; fortifications of the region, 
391; landscape, 369 

Verdun, Battle of, 390 

Verdun, Battlefield of, Aire lowland, 
344; longitudinal valleys, 337; 



Verdun, Battlefield of (continued) 

military operations, 377; river 
barriers, 332; river gateways, 333; 
section across (diagr.), 318; sketch 
map, 319; strategic position, 327; 
surface features, 331; topographic 
map, pocket, PI. IV; transport dif- 
ficulties, 393 

Verdun-Toul line of fortresses, 328, 329 
(map), 467 

Vermandois, 134 

Vermois region, 445 

Vesle River valley near Fisrhes, inun- 
dated, 247 (ill.) 

Vezouse River, 449, 456 

Vigneulles, 352 (ill.), 357, 402, 404 

Villages, Champagne, 261; Somme re- 
gion, 31 (map) 

Villars, Marshal, 88 

Villers-Bretonneux, 115, 116, 120, 192; 
Battle of (1918), 184; battlefield, 
181 (map); plateau, 183 

Villers-Cotterets, 237, 240, 290, 307, 
308, 310, 313 

Vimy Ridge, 65, 91, 140, 141, 142; fault, 
cliff, 101 (diagr.); military value, 
105; northeast up the backslope 
103 (ill.); over Flanders plain from 
the crest, 104 (ill.) ; southward down 
the backslope, 102 (ill.) 

Vimy Ridge, First Battle of, 143 

Vimy Ridge, Fourth Battle of, 188 

Vimy Ridge, Second Battle of, 143 

Vimy Ridge, Third Battle of, 162 

Vineyards, 218 (ill.), 219 (ill.), 221 

Vintschgau-Pustertal corridor, 509 

Vintschgau trench, 513 (ill.) 

Vishegrad, 605, 611 

Vitrimont Forest, 423 (ill.) 

Vittorio Veneto, Battle of, 536 

Vosges Mountains, 328, 335, 415, 456, 
457; cross-section, 418-419; crys- 
talline, 465; crystalline and sand- 
stone, 416, 417; eastern slopes, 
458 (ill.), 459; Lower, 464; north- 
ward from the Ballon d'Alsace (ill.), 
428; passes, 467, 474; sandstone 
Vosges, 461, 462 (ill.); transverse 
valleys, 467; western slopes, 457 

Vouziers, 333, 334, 340, 412 

Voyussa River, 620, 625 (ill.); valley 
floor, 622 (ill.) 

Water barriers, 199, 504 
Water supply, Champagne, 261; Flan- 
ders, 21, 31; Flanders northern 



BATTLEFIELDS OF THE WORLD WAR 



Water supply (Continued) 

.sand belt, contamination, 41; Mes- 
sines Ridge, 69; Somme battlefield, 
149; Somme region, 112 

Wells, Flanders, 21, 32, 46; Somme 
region, 32, 112 

Western front, block diagram, 220 

Western Morava River, S97. 613 

Wet Champagne, 224, 316 

Wet clay plain battlefield, 1 

Whittlesey, C. W., 409 

Whitton, F. E., on the Marne cam- 
paign, 277-278 

Wippach valley, 541, 554. 557. 560 

Woevre lowland, character, 369; north- 
east from the crest of the Meuse 
plateau scarp (ill.), 323; panorama 
(with Meuse plateau), pocket, PI. 
IX, A ; southeast from the crest 
of the Meuse plateau scarp (ill.), 322 

Woevre plain, 321 

Wytschaete, 67, 79, 82 

Xantois region, 447 



Yadar, Battle of the, 60s 

Yadar River, 606 

Yerres (Yeres) River, 243, 248 

Ypres, Fifth Battle of, 78 

Ypres, First Battle of, 60 

Ypres, Fourth Battle of, 70 

Ypres, Second Battle of, 63, 64 

Ypres, Sixth Battle of, 82 

Ypres, Third Battle of, 67, 71 

Ypres bastion, 37, 53, 60, 62, 64, 67, 
71, 78, 80, 81, 82 

Yser, Battle of the, 55 

Yser barrier, 56 (map), 58 

Yser Canal, 63, 71 

Yser River, 26, 28, 48, 55; flooded val- 
ley (ills.), 45 

Yugoslav troops, 538 

Yugoslavs, 545 

Zayechar, 591, 612 
Zeebrugge, 52 
Zhupa, 573 
Zonnebeke, 61, 63, 64, 72 



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